


The Ballad of Hope and Loneliness

by littleneedles



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alcohol, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Mentioned Past Companions (Doctor Who), NSFW, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, Tw death grieving and loss, brief ten/rose mention, tw parental death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 42,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27907855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleneedles/pseuds/littleneedles
Summary: Eileen Frances Moore was born in 1945, on a small property in Southern California. There, she lived her life, with its many ups and downs, just like everyone else. The difference between Eileen and everyone else, however, could be narrowed down to two simple things. If you asked Eileen, she would have said it was how lucky she was to have met who could, arguably, be the most important man to ever exist. If you asked that man, he would have said it was her (very uncharacteristically human) habit of accidentally wandering into someone else’s mind. It didn’t really matter in the end though, did it? She was different, he was different, they were friends, and they were more. This is the story of their time together....Or, an OC AU plot starting with Nine, and tying into all the companions until Donna then going full new companion rewrite with Ten. Eileen has telepathic abilities and The Doctor keeps landing in her backyard. Now he needs to figure out why, and who this peculiar American girl is. Eileen, having lived an eventful life for a peculiar American girl, has some questions of her own and finds answers she didn’t know she needed. A long and shamelessly self gratifying fic.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	1. The Start: The Acorn Falls

**Author's Note:**

> Tags will be edited upon chapter completion.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eileen meets The Doctor and our tale begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the only chapter showing her as a minor, all adult themes don’t occur in this fic until she’s in her twenties. Can’t blame her, we all had to be kids once, I guess.

It started on a Wednesday. A golden and glowing Wednesday evening in 1952, under the heat of a Southern California sun. The air was thick, it was sticky, and it was the best air she had ever felt in her life. She, who often goes by the given name of ‘Eileen Frances Moore’ (or simply ‘Eileen’, if you’re short on time), sat on the edge of a wooden pier over the small pond behind her family home. The home in question was objectively small itself, but through the eyes of a seven year old, it was a tiny palace that rested between the realms of magic and reality. That was how Eileen saw it, which isn’t surprising as most people would consider her a seven year old (not Eileen, personally, but most people). The magic, she believed, was in the pond. An old, man made pond meant to support a small school of fish for the small family who claimed it. Over time, the fish population dwindled, but the family always remained. They added bushes, trees, and even a little pier as the generations went on. The property was passed down from one child to another until we found ourselves sitting on that very same pier (which had been there since 1915) with Eileen. It was hers now, actually. She had just remembered. Her parents had died. Funny how a thing like that can escape you. 

She assumed it was her’s now, anyway. She wasn’t certain, but surely that’s how it worked, right? The old pond kept going down the family line, its old magic growing stronger and stronger over time. It was her turn to take care of it now, right? She supposed that made her feel better, but only if she tried very hard not to admit it didn’t really feel like magic anymore. It just felt real. When she looked over the water, she no longer saw pretend fairies dancing over the surface, bringing in the night time by kicking up the evening gleam off the waves. She just saw sunlight. No matter how hard she tried to see the imaginary flutter of wings that normally came so easily to a child, she just couldn’t. She didn’t hear their bell tinkling laughter, only the cries of lonely birds. 

Yet, yesterday, she could have sworn they were real. She wondered if her sister, Mary, who would be just three next month, could still see them. Eileen liked to imagine her sister could understand her, as she danced and sang of her fairies while the baby sat, giggling, perched in her mother’s lap. She wondered if Mary would expect to see her parent’s faces tomorrow. She knew she would, and she knew every day Mary didn’t, the magic would die all over again. 

Eileen chewed her lip, frantically pushing her messy, honey-brown hair out of her freckled face (and pushed those thoughts away with it). Leaves cracked in between the pressure of her fingers and her tangled locks before falling beside her. Oh yeah. She’d ran here, hadn’t she? Her aunt had pulled in with her suitcases and she’d ran under the bushes, to her favorite place, just beyond the grips of reality. Even if she couldn’t see the wings or hear the laughter, she could still see it was beautiful. Emerald green bushes sat on the edge of the hazy blue and glittering water, letting their pointed leaves fall into the aquatic world below. She didn’t know what kind they were, but it was right then that she decided she would. The bushes, and the barely visible fish that swam between them. If it couldn’t be magic, it could be real. Real, good, and her’s. Eileen sighed, and accepted this, not yet knowing she was much too young to be doing so. 

For a while, she simply stared and watched, counting the different bird songs. Her aunt had found her shortly after she’d run off but had long since let her be. Her name was Liza, she was anywhere between twenty and one-hundred to Eileen, and she would be taking care of them now. She liked her aunt well enough (adored her, really), but she wasn’t her mother. She pushed that thought away too. It would be dark soon enough and she wasn’t the type to spoil the little bit of time she had left on her pier tonight. She was sensible enough to know that even though Aunt Liza wouldn’t hover, she wouldn’t let her stay too long past dark either. So she sat, she watched, and she didn’t think at all.  
She didn’t think so much, in fact, that she hardly noticed the faint sound of laughter in the air. She didn’t notice the glittering wings hovering over the water, or the sunlight being absorbed right out of that water and into the little winged creatures that flew over it. It wasn’t until she felt the brush of something small, sharp, and flexible against her ankles, that is. The feeling was what she thought a dragon fly’s wings might feel like, if they weren’t so scared of people. 

It was the second half of that thought that made Eileen’s eyes widen and her head to snap down towards the water. There they were. Fairies—at least, she thought they were fairies. She couldn’t exactly see their bodies, but she could see their tiny, shimmering wings darting about. They were much too intricate and beautiful to be any bug she’d seen before, she knew that much for certain. And then she heard the laughter, just like she had in her imagination before, and there was no doubt. Well, what she could have sworn was her imagination, anyways. Her jaw dropped, she quickly picked her feet up out of the water, and wrapped her arms tightly around her knees—all in less than a second. 

It was real. The magic had felt gone, but there it was, bobbing about the water. Eileen counted at least five little creatures bouncing over the waves of the pond. All the evenings she had sat, pretending, and there they were. Right in front of her. She wondered why her mother never seemed to notice them all the times she sat with Eileen and Mary by the shore. She wondered if they had always been real, or if she made them real. If her contribution to the pond could be fairies, maybe it would all be worth it. 

Then she heard something else. A low, wheezing sort of noise she had definitely never heard before.

Her head snapped back and forth trying to locate the source of the sound before she saw something coming into vision just out of the corner of her eye. Eileen whipped around, flicking her own hair into her eyes, to face the sight of a little blue box just on the other side of her little blue pond. She quickly realized it must not have been that little because only a second later, a funny looking man in a leather jacket stepped right out of it. Her eyes widened further, and she scrambled back closer inland. It’d finally hit her; the box had just appeared, and an entire man just walked out of it. Her parents were dead, fairies were real, and a strange man just waltzed into her magic place from thin air.

The odd man paced back and forth, checking along the edge of the pond’s banks before looking out across the water. It was then he finally saw her, and she really saw him. Her first impression was correct; he was funny looking. His leather jacket didn’t look like the ones she saw in the shops now, but that’s what it was, unmistakingly. More like the ones older men wore than the crisp oil toned leather she knew, but still not quite the same. She couldn’t make out his face as well as she would have liked, but she certainly saw his ears, even from a distance. He waved just then, arm wailing about back and forth, and she saw his grin too. Eileen waved back weakly. 

“I’m too early,” He shouted from across the water. “Why am I early?” 

Her mouth gaped open, no doubt making her look a bit funny as well. He spoke differently than any way she thought she had heard before, but she couldn’t figure out why. “Th-,” she began, choking on her words, “The funeral isn’t until tomorrow!” 

Eileen saw his grin drop, and decided he looked much less amusing when he wasn’t smiling. “Funeral?” He called, “What year is it?” 

Her expression matched his now. Year? And was that British? She’s never heard of someone not knowing the year. She’d never heard her of parents knowing anyone British. “1952,” she called back, phrasing it as a question. 

His puzzlement now matched hers. “But why am I early?” It wasn’t meant for her, at least she hoped, because she hadn’t the slightest idea what he was even asking. 

Eileen blinked, obviously quite unsure of what to say. So she admitted it. “I’m not sure, sir,” she yelled, “have you tried fixing your watch?” 

A beat of silence and then a loud, singular laugh from across the way before the man climbed back into his box. She heard the noise again, but she watched this time as it slipped in and out of sight. Then, simple as that, it was gone. There and gone right before her eyes. She glanced at the water and saw stillness. Sometime between then and now it had gotten dark, and everything had become quiet. No more laughter echoed into the night air. She heard the wood creak behind her and turned with record speed to see her aunt’s face jump into surprise at the alert reaction. Eileen sighed with the feeling of relief and stood to greet her. 

“Sorry, Aunt Liza,” she said, dusting off the bottom of her ‘Outside Pants’, as they were referred to, “I think I’ve been out here too long.” 

Liza smiled weakly, her face now gentle with understanding, and held out her hand. Her wild and curly black hair had always made her look like a fairytale wise lady to Eileen.  
“Seems like you were out here just long enough. You look fine to me. Come on, Leenie, we’ll go listen to 45’s and bake some cookies, yeah?” The girl smiled, really, for the first time in days. She really did like her aunt, you know. 

This was the day Eileen began to become the person she was meant to be, and she was only vaguely aware of it (as most children only ever vaguely are). Now, she was the girl who had seen real magic, and real death, all before eight years old. Eileen didn’t know there were people who went their whole lives without either. She only knew, despite it all, she didn’t cry that night. She dreamt of fairies, bells, golden sun, and shades of a deep navy blue.

————*————*————

It was another Wednesday afternoon. Three exact years later, in 1955, but this time with a clouded sky and a thin mist of drizzle. Eileen sat, as she still did most days, on her pier, which would, in fact, legally belong to her when she came of age. In those three years, she started real schooling, helped care for her sister, grew to adore her aunt more and more, saw everything a little bit clearer, and sat at her lake when she felt lonely. Sometimes she would still see the fairies, but they began showing up later in the day as the years went on. Though, there were definitely quite a bit more of them now than before. From five to fifty, the tiny creatures danced and weaved between the flecks of light on the water. 

She never watched them long, still growing into the bravery of facing whatever might lay in the thicket of greenery sitting just past the lake. She didn’t think anything was ever there, but it was always hard to keep her imagination from taking off at this hour. Especially when the last time she allowed that, the fairies appeared. She was still just ten, after all. She didn’t want to risk accidentally making something else just show up. Besides, what if the fairies only showed up later because there were more of them? Did they have something to worry about in the dark? Eileen, even at ten, didn’t let these questions escape her.

In fact, it was beginning to be just a touch too scary for her liking when she heard that familiar, low rumble once again. 

The one she’d never admit she was waiting for, but always wondered about. The one she heard on the night she’d kept to herself all these years (partly because it was her night, and partly because she was never sure how much of it actually happened). But there it was, like a forgotten memory coming back to her, the noise grew stronger and louder in her ears. It was like the sound was pulling in and out of being able to be heard at all, just like the box pulled in and out of sight. She couldn’t begin to describe it past that—it was a pulling sound, that’s all she knew. Eileen turned back to the same place across the pond as before, and felt a sudden surge of relief and validation to know she hadn’t imagined that bit of the evening. There, between the even fuller bushes (California Wax Myrtle, usually native to Northern and Central California, but still able to grow in the Southern regions if the conditions and elevation are right), stood the blue box. She made sure to read it this time.

“Police public call box,” Eileen muttered, furrowing her brow and wrinkling her freckled nose. She hadn’t thought he looked like a policeman. Then, as if the man had heard her skeptical thoughts, he stepped out wearing the same leather jacket and jeans from three years ago. He looked, albeit from a distance, the exact way he did that night, actually. Same clothes, same ears, same wide grin, and the exact same enthusiastic wave. 

“Hello again,” he shouted, still British as well, she gathered. 

“Hello,” she answered. She wasn’t scared this time (at least not as much), she was determined. “Who are you?”

“I—,” the man’s low voice started, before breaking off and finally acknowledging the fairies over the water. “Fantastic!” He shouted, gripping his fist in victory. 

“I know!” She yelled back, “But who are you?” 

She heard him laugh and saw him pull a small object she couldn’t make out from his pocket. She considered meeting him on the other side, but reason won, and Eileen remained patiently in her spot while the funny man looked as if he was unscrewing the thing in his hands before holding each end over the water. A tiny purple light gleamed from the small object. If she would have blinked, she’d have missed seeing all of the fairies get drawn right into the light before the man slammed his hands together. Good thing she didn’t blink. It was darker now, without the reflection of sun against their wings. The man—who reminded Eileen of one of her funny cartoon characters—twisted his hands together, assumingly screwing the thing back into place. He shoved the object into his pocket before striding over to her, a casual lean in his walk that made her think it was safe.

As he grew closer, she began to make out the aged skin that grazed his features. He looked older than he did when he was far away, but she supposed that would be true for most people. His ears, as well as his wild grin, grew bigger with every step. She also noticed his hair wasn’t just short, it was shaved, and she briefly wondered if he was an army man. Most men she met with shaved heads were in the army. The stranger scared her just a little, but she decided, so far, he seemed trustworthy.

“Right,” he said, finally closing the distance with his long and gangly legs, “I’m The Doctor. And who might you be?” She narrowed her hazel eyes and stared at the hand he stuck out in front of him, not yet taking it. She’d shaken a lot of hands since her parents died, and she realized quickly that she can pick up more than she wanted to from someone when she touched them. Eileen figured most people felt that rush of invasive emotion when they connected skin or eyes with someone too long, but she didn’t like it enough to deal with it like everyone else. 

“Your box says ‘police’ on it,” she said, “are you undercover?” Eileen didn’t know enough about policemen to know why that couldn’t have been the case, but she couldn’t come up with another sensible reason. 

The Doctor laughed. “Nah,” he said, retracting his hand smoothly and plopping down beside her (but at a distance) on the pier. His large feet dangled, almost touching the water. He took out and tossed up the small and golden sphere she presumed held the fairies, and those feet did a kick. “Just doin’ a bit of, er, pollinating, I guess you could say.” He shoved the thing back into his pocket before turning back to her, close enough to where she could see the way his front teeth made his smile so friendly. “So? Who’s the mysterious little human girl sitting here every time I pop in?” 

She looked at him suspiciously, picking up on the selective use of ‘human’. Oh, yes, she was quite perceptive, but wouldn’t realize it herself for some time.  
“Eileen.” He gave another hearty laugh and her frown deepened, now accompanied with the reddening tips of her ears. She was beginning to trust him less. 

“Come on Eileen, ooooh I swear I’m—,” The Doctor began singing enthusiastically before cutting off abruptly. “Blimey, what’s he doing? Well, now I’ve forgotten the rest. Don’t suppose you’d know it, would you?” She shook her head, feeling a little less embarrassed, but still guarded all the same. Still, something in his goofy appearance, or perhaps his relaxed demeanor, made her like him. A little. 

“No, is that The Fontane Sisters?” Eileen listened to the radio every night with Aunt Liza and Mary, but she still didn’t know a lot of music by name, so she picked her aunt’s favorite group hoping it would make her sound more sophisticated. 

It was The Doctor’s turn to pull a face now. “If you didn’t say Elvis, we must be before 1956. What year is it, you think you can manage that one?” 

Eileen crossed her small arms. “1955. You know, for someone that doesn’t even know the year, you sure are cruisin’ for a bruisin’, mister. What’d you even say your name was?” 

He laughed again, using his whole body like he did every time. It was vulnerable, and even she knew not many people did that. “I like you, kid. I said it’s The Doctor.” 

She turned to look ahead of her, eyes unfocused and falling over the water. Eileen didn’t want to give up the little power she had in the conversation, so she kept her previous appreciations to herself and went the tough route. “That’s dumb. What are you doing out here anyways?” 

He turned, matching her movements (but with a smile instead of her stern expression) and peered out towards his box.

“I reckon it is a bit dumb, isn’t it? I was just picking up your little friends out here. Time to take ‘em home, but I had to wait for them to repopulate a bit, space themselves out some. See,” he broke his forward gaze to turn to her, deep brown eyes full of fascination and excitement, “they feed off reflections of light, but only evening reflections. The UV radiation—that’s the stuff that comes out the Sun, you know—is a tad, hm, different when it’s lower. The red light travels out the farthest, and that’s what they like best, the red. Think it might taste a bit like chicken. And it seems,” he kicked his shoe through the lake to splash up some water, “they’ve taken quite a liking to your backyard here. Wonder why that is. Last time I was here, you said the funeral wasn’t until tomorrow. Whose funeral was it?” 

Eileen didn’t flinch. Everyone talked about it, all the time, even to mention how it shouldn’t be talked about. “My parents. What are they? Why was the light in that thing purple if they eat red?” 

The Doctor’s face changed a bit, held something more in it, but it didn’t fall completely. “Solarious. From the planet Astrinogem, where the waters cover all but three big islands and that’s where these little fellas live. Just absorbing away all the light they can eat, happy as clams. They eat the red light, but blue puts them to sleep, and when you put red and blue together what do you have? Purple. Purple, sleepy Solarious. That was a very good question, you know.” She liked the way he talked about it very much, but he paused. “Sorry I have to take them.” 

She shrugged, very thankful he didn’t mention the other thing. Eileen has sat watching her fairies—her Solarious—for years now. When she felt lonely, she would even find herself considering them friends. But their absence wouldn’t make this place any less important to her, and she always knew they were never really hers. She could never own something so magnificent, and would never dream of truly trying. Eileen would miss them, but look at what her lake brought to her. In a way, it felt like a gift from her parents, silly as it seemed. Glowing light eaters and a funny man in a funny box. She was equipped for loss, it was the memories she knew to cherish.  
“That’s okay. So they’re from space? Are you from space?”

He paused again, glancing over at her, more aware of the things that crossed her mind than either of them would ever know. “Yes. And yes. That’s my ship,” he said, pointing to the blue box across the lake. 

“That?” Eileen finally laughed, “You ride around in space in that? It’s tiny!”

The Doctor smiled at her, face losing the touch hardness it had developed before.  
“A dumb name and a dumb box, that’s me. It’s, uh, a bit more comfortable than it looks,” he sniffed. She knew in the way that he spoke there was more he wasn’t saying than what he was. 

Eileen hummed in response, allowing him his secrets. The girl and The Doctor sat there for a moment, in the echo of that hum, simply enjoying each other’s company. It was broken by the sound of his voice cutting into the silence next to her. 

“I was certain I put in the right moment, the right instance, and yet I still landed there,” his voice, already quiet, trailed off. When she glanced at him, he wore a face of perplexity and concentration. Then he noticed her.  
“Right,” he said, jumping up and dusting off his jeans, just as she had that first night, “I really should be getting these guys back home.” 

“Where will you go? After that? In your spaceship? What are you doing next? Are you going to help more little things out there? What kinds of things out there? How did you know they needed the help? ” Eileen asked suddenly. She hadn’t realized she wanted to know everything until it came tumbling out. When it did, she felt a flush of relief, like someone released the pressure from her lungs. The Doctor turned and smiled, the same way he did before when he poked fun at himself, as he began his short journey back. He appreciated the questions, yet still chose to only answer the two he felt most important (and one can’t really blame him).

“Oh, I dunno. London, maybe? It’s been a while since I saw good ol’ London. As for helping, oh, boy. There’s always someone out there who could use some help, you remember that one.” He glanced briefly at his little blue box, then back at her, trailing behind him.  
“Can I trust you Eileen? Can you keep a secret or two?” He asked, not keeping his gaze directed towards her. That was okay. She was still hanging on his every word, and willing to admit it now.

“I think so,” she nodded fiercely, her hair turning gold as it caught the last of the sunset, “I’ve never told anyone about the fai—the Solarious, you know. Even when I really wanted to, not even my sister. She’ll be seven soon, she can’t keep a secret.”

The Doctor lifted a slightly bushy eyebrow at that, but she couldn’t see it. “Why? You’re young—well, you’re all young, but you’re real young. Usually when this kind of thing happens, there’s one other person at least that the young ones have told. Parent, sibling, friend, mysterious alien entity—someone. It’s not good to keep too many secrets.” 

Eileen shrugged, and answered simply, “Nosey. Messy, too.” 

The Doctor laughed again, short and loud, and she wondered if her aunt could hear it.  
“Yeah, I like you. So! The big secret,” he paused, this time to wiggle his eyebrows and spin a full circle for theatrics. “It’s a time machine, too. London,” he said, jumping over a rock along the bank, “but oh, maybe….2000? Give or take a few years, maybe decades, if this little fluke isn’t just another dumb me error after all.” 

Eileen snorted, attempting to hop over the same rock he did, with less grace. “No way,” she grinned, picking her pace up and trying quite hard to catch up with his much too long legs. “Really?” She did watch it just, sort of, appear right in front of her (twice, kinda), and the man was wearing the exact same—wait.  
“Does that mean you were just here? Three years ago?” They were almost to the box now, and she didn’t want him to go.

“You’re quick,” he said, finally turning to face her one last time as he closed the distance to the doors. 

She tucked the compliment away for later, but still glowing with pride at getting it right.  
“Good luck, Mr. Alien Doctor.” She kept her distance from the ship, not knowing how close was safe. 

He grinned again, the pulling of his cheeks making his ears wiggle the tiniest bit. “Thank you, Eileen of Lake Solarious, and the best of luck to you as well, of course. Keep watch for me, yeah?” 

She simply nodded, having nothing more to say beyond questions, and the man in the leather jacket climbed back into his blue box and disappeared slowly out of sight. Eileen noticed it was getting dark then. She decided it was time for bed, right on schedule for her aunt, but listened to the radio quietly in her room until sleep took over. She did this every night until she finally heard her first Elvis song in 1957. Eileen always thought she had remembered the date wrong, but even Southern California took a while to play the new mainstream on the radio. 

She, after their second meeting, became the girl who not only saw that maybe the world had a safety net after all, but who knew about Elvis before even the radio did. 

————*————*————

Five years (and some months) later, in 1960, Eileen’s small—and no longer new—family, took a vacation. Her Aunt Liza, who she knew for a fact to be twenty-eight years old now, was still too young to be raising girls of fifteen and eleven. Liza (they were too comfortable with each other to constantly use the ‘Aunt’ title), wasn’t one to give up on her youth because of her circumstances. Eileen realized this was what she had always loved about her aunt sometime around her thirteenth’s birthday. That, and how she never changed her curly mane of black hair to the latest trend, despite all the looks from the Californian debutants. She was taught Eileen how easy it could be to exist outside your expectations and the importance of understanding what and why you have expectations at all. She didn’t know what kind of person she would have been without the appetite for life and personality that Liza brought back into their home. 

Mary was too young to really be afflicted by their mutual loss, but she only rarely took their aunt’s kindness for granted. This fact about their guardian’s youthful outlook is what led them to take this vacation of theirs. The British Invasion was beginning to take the start of its hold in the states (but only the hippest of the hip knew this early)—Liza (the hippest of the hip), a twenty-something in SoCal, was obviously going to see the root of it all. Eileen was the only one who thought of a little more than Cliff Richard walking down the streets. 

Since her two encounters with The Doctor, she’s grown quite a bit. The world had grown with her in that time, but not as much as she would have liked. 1960 was nowhere near a perfect time, but it was the one she lived in. As she got older and began to understand more of her setting and the rules within it, her mind started to wander back to the man who could see endless change in whatever time he’d like. With every cruelty she came to recognize, she would catch herself thinking ‘does he know how this ends?’ After a time, she started allowing herself to ask, and then she couldn’t stop. She questioned why she was in this time, what times were to follow, and what choices she (a fifteen year old) could make to nudge history in the right direction. She couldn’t stop being aware of time, its passing, and the way it was both endless and never long enough. 

Eileen thought that to be a pretty justifiable new habit—how many people have had to just meet him and move on? She often wondered how many different people (humans or otherwise, she supposed) have carried out their lives knowing so much more was out there. And she always thought of London. The place he said he was intended for, though she knew it wasn’t the right time. He said he had been there before, and within those five years, Eileen began casually rifling through the history books to see if she could spot that familiar blue box. A few times, she thought she did, but she never let herself be certain; after all, she didn’t know what the rules were, did she? Could he allow himself to be recorded? Could you let himself be seen, or interfere to things meant to be? What she saw were ghosts and traces in old photographs and paintings. Faded square corners and the shades of navy that had filled her childhood dreams. It wasn’t enough to call it fact, but it was enough to always leave her wondering. 

The moment between the girl and The Doctor on the pier had more of a hold on her over the years than she’d realized, however. She was smart before, much too aware for a child of her age, as she now realized. Not only, at this point, was she smart, but she was open to endless possibilities. She questioned everything, not trusting her eyes to gather all the knowledge a situation required—and why should she? She sought out everything, constantly chasing the thrill of being able to say she understood something completely. This quality was entirely her own, however, but was certainly accelerated the day she learned her fairies were not fairies but tiny creatures named Solarious. That was the first time she had experienced that feeling, so she looked for it everywhere and found it in everything. Like the California Wax Bush, she now knew she was quite lucky to have.

So, yes, while The Doctor held some pull of interest towards her trip, there was much more to it than that. In her search to find him, she had actually found so much more. She read books cover to cover describing the rise and fall of countless civilizations, and London had become a bit of a favorite of hers. She’d read of William the Conqueror, Henry VII, George III, all the monarchs with a fascination of their glory and malice—all leading to the new and shiney Elizabeth II. She was able to see the admirable qualities and the detestable ones at once, because of that handy ability to be open to any and everything. She saw not only the passing of rulership, but the people they governed. The dead, the vengeful, the grateful, the allies, and the politicians pulling the strings. She saw, without needing to be reminded, the way even history has been shifted to suit those it benefits most. An ability not many people had, and not the only ‘one of its kind’ gift she possessed. Those encounters with The Doctor changed her, but they only made her more of who she already was, you see.. 

That was Eileen; perceptive, curious, determined to understand, and hungry for the feeling of an unbiased truth. She liked those things about herself very much, in fact. So did Liza, who also saw this in her own personality as well as Eileen’s, and was never shy in shining an encouraging light on it. Mary, however, never noticed this about her sister, as she had no problem accepting things as they had been presented to her. Neither of the other two blamed her for that; Mary didn’t really lose her parents, she couldn’t remember having had any. Mary never saw the Solarious again, because her mother hadn’t been there to keep her safe and Liza was too busy to hold her (understandably). There they were, the three of them and their differences, bumbling down the street together on the last day of their trip. 

“I want tea and biscuits,” Mary said obnoxiously, in a ridiculously faux English accent. 

Liza laughed and shot apologetic glances to the few offended Brits that turned their way. “And so you shall receive, my love,” their aunt said, taking hold of the young girl's hand and swinging it as they made their way down the damp sidewalk. 

“Biscuits!” Mary yelled, imitating the bird from Alice in Wonderland screeching ‘Serpents’. She’d been tickled pink by the accents and the use of ‘biscuits’ over ‘cookies’. Nobody looked their way this time; that bit of fake accentry didn’t seem to be out too of the ordinary, it seemed.

They continued their journey down the street, that had become familiar to them on their vacation, one final time. Liza, ever considerate, had their bags sent ahead of time, not wanting the end of their holiday to be tied down with the responsibility of hauling luggage. They left the hotel with the intention of walking to the sweets shop on the corner, and her sister had no plans to let anyone forget it. The older two let the eleven year old sing her biscuit songs, and after a while, the rest of the pedestrians let her as well. There was a hint of sadness in the air for the trio, the way there always is on the last day of an enjoyable trip. Best not let Mary notice it and keep her songs light and joyful. 

The sweet shop came and went, and Eileen was chewing the last of some deliciously house-made chocolates when she saw it. 

A blue police call box, just across the busy London sidewalks, when the rest of them were red.

She stopped dead in her tracks, while the other two strode on obliviously. Suddenly, her shock made the inevitable shift into panic as she remembered they only had a half hour to be on the plane and in the sky. 

“Leenie?” Liza called out, pulling Mary back with the hands they still held in place together (sticky fingers and all). 

“Yeah,” Eileen replied a bit weakly, nodding but not looking to face her, “five minutes, tops, please, just—five minutes.” By the time she’d finished the sentence (or her attempt at one), she was already halfway across the street, leaving them no choice in the matter. Liza’s round, green eyes held the same exact look of concern Eileen’s did, but neither of them would know of their shared expression in the moment (despite the different reasons behind them). Her father had the same eyes, and if he were there, they’d have the same fear too. 

“Doctor,” she said, her voice growing louder in the last syllable. Her eyes grazed across the length street for a leather jacket and stubbly, shaved head. It was a split second decision to drop ‘The’ from his title, and Eileen, a bit sillily, hoped that wouldn’t make her miss him. Her pace quickened as she crossed onto the opposite sidewalk, and to her surprise, a much older man she hadn’t really noticed at all stopped directly in front of the blue time machine. Her step faltered as she realized he was, in fact, looking at her. 

“Yes,” he said, in a voice that seemed to shake with age, “yes, my child, what is it?” Eileen stopped just a foot in front of him. He was older—much older—than the man she had met before. This man had a length of thinning, white hair falling behind his head, and he was dressed in a way that made her think of him more as a Professor than a Doctor. 

“I—,” She began, words catching in her throat, “I’m sorry, are you The Doctor?” 

“Of course I am,” the small man huffed pridefully, shaking his head and drawing attention to his ridiculously sharp cheekbones. “And who are you, what might you need with me? I’m quite busy at the moment, you know, haven’t the time to sit conversing on the streets all day.” 

Eileen blinked. The two Doctors were nothing alike, and she wondered if ‘The Doctor’ could be a title passed along. So, naturally, she decided to ask. “How many of The Doctor have there been then?” 

This made the man huff again, throwing his hands down from their place clutching at his waist coat. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he may have also stamped his foot, just the smallest bit.  
“How many—That is my name, dear child. How many of you have there been? Hm?” He looked at her, eyes stern (though she sensed that was normal for this man), impatient, and still wild with something she couldn’t recognize yet. 

“One, of course. You’re right, but—,” she stopped again, looking at her shoes and feeling slightly (considerably, really) embarrassed. “Do you not remember me, Doctor? Eileen of Lake Solarious, you—you asked me to watch over it for you. Astrinogem?” Her voice trailed towards the end, and she felt more like a foolish child than she had ever felt in her whole life. Judging by his expression, The Doctor felt the same about her right about now.

“I haven’t the time for these games, child, I really must be going, you see. It is imperative we make it to th—,” but he spoke as he walked into the blue box, and Eileen never did find out where he was going next. A moment later, it was all gone, just as it was those times before, and nobody else seemed to notice. That’s one more thing she hadn’t been expecting. 

“Leeeeeenie!” She heard Mary’s whine from where the two were still standing on the opposite side of the street. “Come oooon!” 

She took one more breath, finishing the moment, and walked back to her family. They ended their day, just as they intended to, but Eileen didn’t notice at all. Her head swirled with possibilities, and none of them she liked. Had this been the same man, but aged since the last time they’d met? Does that mean he forgot her, and what felt like the most special moment of her life, just a meaningless Wednesday for him? Was she foolish for not realizing it couldn’t have been any other way before? Why had she been expecting him to remember a little thing like that when he had all of time and space at his disposal? 

No, Eileen didn’t like any of those explanations. The world around her went in one ear and out the other, until she found herself in her own bed countless hours (and time changes) later. She felt lonelier than she had felt in her whole life, and she already fought off a good dose of that feeling enough as it was. She didn't know why she expected him to remember her, but the thought of being forgotten by what she’d always expected to be the most important man in the universe didn’t feel very good at all. On top of that, she seemed to be the only one to know he’d ever even been there. Nobody blinked as her magician, his box, and that feeling of being important just drifted out of sight. Eileen couldn’t even share the wonder with anyone, because, despite her hurt, she couldn’t betray his trust. He went all the way to her small little pond just to help a little group of beings that weren’t even the size of her ten year old fingertips. He had things to do, and she was the only one on that street that knew that. She supposed, at the end of the day, maybe just knowing could be enough.

It was at that moment, around two a.m., that Eileen Francis Moore stepped closer to the life she was meant for. She was the girl who saw everything could be possible, but it couldn’t always be hers for the taking. She saw this, and still felt grateful she knew anything could be at all. She didn’t even realize that should have been hard—she just knew it was the smartest thing to do.

Eileen didn’t listen for the sound of reality pulling against the wind anymore. She knew if they were supposed to meet again, he surely would have recognized her.


	2. The Start, Part II: The Acorn Lands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the journey begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for psychedelic mention, alcohol / weed consumption, and some serious death and grieving talk. Doozy of a chapter. Thanks for reading.
> 
> 12/15 edit: Realized I definitely forgot to fix the year typo before publishing. My bad, y’all.

Three years (and exactly two months later), Eileen was eighteen years old, in the year 1962. She never forgot about that special time in her life, but she didn’t build herself up around it anymore. She created special moments of her own, mostly by the pond, of course. When she was sixteen, she introduced more fish and started a school up again. When she was fourteen, she spent the whole summer reading Jane Austen with her toes in the water. When she was eleven, she set up a telescope and kept the hobby here and there ever since. 

At this particular point in time, Eileen had just been accepted into the local college to pursue her, unsurprising, degree in journalism (with an undecided area of focus, to clarify). She was hoping, by the time she graduated, publications would begin warming up to the idea of female writers, but if not, she would go abroad if she had to. She’d always wanted to learn French, after all—maybe Italian. She wasn’t opposed to getting into the more philosophical audience abroad if the domestic wouldn’t take her here. 

Eileen was excited. She’d found something to do with all this useless knowledge and intellectual wanderlust she had picked up over the years, and what’s more, she genuinely loved sharing it with other people. Liza had encouraged her idea from the beginning, and Eileen was grateful she wasn’t living in a house where a woman wasn’t supposed to think only of the family she’d build. She had never had much of a family herself, and she didn’t suddenly need one now either. She wanted to spend her life doing the one thing that has brought her endless comfort over the years; questioning. 

“And what better way to learn than to research,” Eileen sighed to nobody in particular, stretching her legs out in front of her over the water. There she sat, content for a while, simply enjoying her pond and daydreaming of her future. She no longer was restricted by the impending dark, free to sleep and dream as long as she pleased. And so she did, well into the sunset. She remembered the Solarious then, as she did from time to time, and the few years she was lucky enough to have watched them grow. She remembered The Doctor, and how awestruck she was when she heard ‘Hound Dog’ on the radio two years after he had said Elvis’ name (and two years before he was supposed to). It hurt a bit, to reflect on how she’d been forgotten, but she pushed it away in favor of the gratitude. 

It wasn’t the first time she had sat at the water and analyzed the past, and it was the first time he had seemed to come when she called, because all of a sudden she heard a noise. 

That whirling, pulling sound she had given up on a long time ago.

Suddenly, she was ten again, whipping her head back and forth to find the source of the indescribable sound. Just then, in what she now considered to be His spot, it appeared. Just as it had before. She sat frozen, toes still sunk into the water from earlier. 

When the door opened, Eileen held her breath, only to let it out in a noise of confusion as a tall, skinny man with much longer brown hair sticking every which way stepped out from behind it. He wore glasses, a striped suit, and was staring intently at a small square object in his hand. Out from behind him stepped a smaller blonde woman, who seemed much more interested in their surroundings than he did. It was her that noticed Eileen first, and with a concerned expression she could make out even from across the water, the woman tapped the assumed Doctor on the shoulder and pointed at Eileen.

The tall, gangly man finally saw her, and then seemed to take notice of where they were. 

Eileen could tell, because upon locking eyes with her, he said, “Is that—Is this—It is! But why is it?” His voice was a little higher before, but she could hardly register that, because there, at the center of it, was the one thing she was missing in all these years; recognition. He, despite being an entirely different man, was speaking like she knew him. So she took a chance.

“Doctor,” Eileen called hesitantly, an air of question in her tone. 

“Eileen?” He called back, sounding just as puzzled. 

“Doctor!” She yelled, springing to her feet and tumbling over herself as she ran over to meet the travelers at their mysterious box. 

“Carefully,” he warned loudly, yet remained unmoved from his place. Eileen, again, didn’t care—he knew her. She swallowed the rest of her (once again, considerable) embarrassment as she closed the gap between her and the newcomers. 

“You remember me?” She said, out of breath and a bit demandingly. 

“Well, of course I remember you. Eileen of Lake Solarious, guardian to the light eaters of Astrinogmen. You were meant to keep watch for me, how’d that go? Seen anything a bit odd lately? Big, nasty things runnin’ about? And more importantly, how did you know it was me so fast? I mean, blue box and all, but it usually takes people a tick to put it all together in the end, what, with the new face ‘nd everything.” She sat patiently while he went on. Something in his the way he said his ‘o’s made her think he must have been Scottish, but she couldn’t be sure. 

“Yea—I mean, no. Nothing weird. You didn’t remember me the last time I saw you. First, I thought it may not have been you, but you said there was only one, but then I thought you may have been older, but now you’re here and you’re different, but you remember, so it’s you.” She stopped, feeling a flush creep up the back of her neck. “I’m glad.” She’s been peering up at him with what must have read as amazement, because the woman (though she couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Eileen) was giving her a look of both understanding and concern.

“Last time you saw me, when was that?” The Doctor frowned, and she compared his new sharp, sculpted features to the rougher, rounder ones of his previous face he wore here. He looked more thoughtful, not only in a kind way (but sure, that too), but literally like he had much more on his mind than the last face she had met by the pond—or any other, for that matter. That man looked like he carried his past along behind him, but this man looked like he had it in front of him, constantly.

“A few years ago for me, but—well, you were very old, and hadn’t the slightest idea who I was. It may not have happened to you yet.” She turned towards the blonde woman, who had taken to watching the pair as if they were an amusing tennis match. “I’m Eileen, by the way, Eileen Moore.” The woman smiled, seeming grateful for the acknowledgment. She wondered how often she must get overlooked standing next to him—and also, how?

“Rose Tyler,” the woman—Rose—said in a thick London accent, sticking out her hand. 

“Oh,” Eileen grinned, taking it, “London? Are you from the 60’s too? Well, no you can’t be, unless you’ve been with him for a long time.” She’d answered her own question after taking in the clothes Rose was wearing. She was dressed in a faded pink hooded sweatshirt and tighter jeans than Eileen had ever seen worn so casually.

“Oh, she gets a hand shake,” The Doctor muttered under his breath, not looking up. 

Rose had. In the brief moment they had clasped hands, Eileen felt a surge of confusion and awe. She felt the same wonder she did the first time she had met The Doctor. She felt something similar to what she did when she thought she was forgotten on the streets of London—but more, so much more. It went hand in hand with the confusion she felt before, like an echo of a lonely betrayal deep under everything else. About three seconds later, when they pulled apart, it was gone. Eileen didn’t shake hands when she was a child, but she had to when the memorial services began. She got used to it. She didn’t really notice it, and had more or less learned to forget about it. Yet, for that one small moment, she got everything she would need to know about someone, and didn’t even realize.

“She’s a sharp one, ain’t she,” Rose said out of the corner of her mouth with a smirk. “No, this’n here picked me up in 2005.” 

Eileen nodded, smiling to herself. “That’s where he said he was going after he came here.” She was delighted at the sensation of knowing something, as she usually was, and wore it plainly. 

“Where’d you find me, Eileen?” The Doctor interrupted to ask again, still looking at her with his arms folded. She felt the heat on her neck slip back into place. 

“It wasn’t like I was looking for you, but we went to London, and I saw one blue box in all the reds, so I just assumed, naturally.” She stopped, allowing for more interruption, but he sat patiently instead, not breaking eye contact with her purposefully. “And I called for you,” she continued, feeling foolish once again, “and you answered, but you were an old man, very old, and had no clue who I was. Of course.” She added the last line with the intent to save a bit of her dignity at what suddenly felt like an interrogation. 

His face jumped into realization, and The (new, lanky) Doctor spun in a circle, just as he had before. “Right,” he yelled in his twist, “The funny American girl who made me late to The Meeting of Five Heads!” He stopped abruptly, unkempt brows curving together into the same look of perplexity she had seen on all three of his faces.

“That’s four times I’ve run into you now, Eileen Moore.” He peered over his slightly pointed nose at her, eyebrows now stretching up towards his subtle widows peak. “I don’t tend to run into people.” he said, lips almost unmoving. His tongue did all the work from behind his teeth. She kept her gaze with him, not enjoying the speculation in his tone or across his features. 

“You’re the one who keeps popping up in my backyard,” she said defensively, crossing her arms. Rose let out a laugh, and The Doctor broke his look of concentration to soften at the sound. 

“‘S’pose that’s true, yeah. But still,” he said, rocking back on his heels, “it’s not often I meet someone twice, let alone four times.” He kept his eyes on her, and she could see the wheels turning in his mind. 

She was older now, and he was younger. She couldn’t help the tiny thrill that rushed through her knowing he was thinking that intently of their encounters. Eileen took a second to indulge this whim, and appreciate his new appearance. The messy hair that looks like he’d taken only his hands through it and nothing more, the way his suit creased into his body, the touch of personality in the bright red Chuck Taylor’s on his feet. But it was only for a second before the guilt of doing so sunk into her.

“So,” Rose said, breaking her way into the silence. “What’s a Solarious?” 

“Oh,” The Doctor said, running his hands over his head in a way that explained a lot about his slightly disheveled appearance, “just your every day, run of the mill, low on the food chain consumers of high quality, low light level UV radiation that got torn away from their migrating colony and found themselves in Eileen’s backyard. You know. Usual,” he shrugged, letting his jaw tighten as he finished the sentence and turned back to the square device in his hand. “And now, it seems, something else might have been through here. I followed the signal on the reader back to these coordinates, but the traces aren’t near what they should be for something to still be making a home out here.” 

“So, what does that mean,” Eileen started before answering her own question, again, “things have just been passing through here? Maybe they’ve been attracted to something the Solarious left over—or maybe what you’re reading is what the Solarious left behind—or a—“

“You know,” The Doctor interrupted, now having finally put away the grey device completely in favor of looking at the frantic and wide eyed girl with a glow of intrigue and possible pride, “you would have been very helpful about twenty-five minutes ago, give or take about fourteen seconds.” 

She shrugged, doing her best (which was very good) to keep all swelling sense of glee contained at his, now, much less abrasive demeanor.

“‘S’where we s’posed to go, then?” Rose asked, no malice intended but still saying the last words Eileen would have wanted to hear, yet knew was inevitable. 

She took a split second to really look at the other woman, with her casual but intimidating beauty. Eileen quickly came to the conclusion that she was kind—not because of information and intent like The Doctor, but with a casualty that was so natural Rose must not have known there was any other way to be. She could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice (and feel it in her hands). That’s how Eileen made sense of the information she didn’t realize she wasn’t supposed to have.

Her repressed, yet tangible, sting of jealousy didn’t subside, but was lessened upon having confirmation that the person traveling with him would have at least been deserving. The way Rose looked at him read like she knew just how lucky she was to be going on this journey. Eileen was happy for her—envious, yes, but happy. At least he didn’t keep it all to himself. 

“First,” The Doctor said decidedly, pulling the machine out of his pocket, “I need to double check something. And single check some others. Hell, maybe double—no, triple checks all around!” He finished his sentence halfway into the Wax Bush, not interested in any protests towards his actions. Rose was familiar with that trait of his apparently, because she simply sighed with defeat and chewed her lip in response. 

“What are you guys looking for?” Eileen asked, trying to lift the slight decline in mood that had set in since The Doctor’s departure. She kept her voice casual and rocked back just the slightest bit on her heels to emphasize that. 

“Oh, well, there were these—well, actually,” Rose began, reluctantly taking the bait into conversation, “first, we were in California, but during The Gold Rush, you see.” She started showing traces of a smile, her full and pink lips curving up the smallest length to her cheeks towards the beginning of dimples. “You know, watchin’ the miners, n’all that? Bangin’ away with their little axes, startin’ years of corruption? Tha’s how The Doctor put it, anyways.” Another slight dip in tone, then she caught herself and came back to her goal. 

“Well, there were these big, I dunno, oil ghosts? Things? Giant, oily snake things, I reckon you could say. Came up, all threatenin’ and what have you, then right as they were about to attack some blokes, they just up and vanished. Not a drop left behind. So’s The Doctor pulled out some little ‘Excrement Atom Tracer’—,” she was grinning at this point, lashes crinkling with her eyes, a pink glow in her cheeks, “—doohickey and we followed the coordinates here, but apparently? Nothing. It’s a bit mad really,” she said, trailing off. She hadn’t left Eileen room to get much of a word in, and she wondered if Rose felt a little relief not having The Doctor’s looming presence near. 

“It’s just,” the blonde kept going, but now with a more serious air to her, “usually when things like this happen—us having to go chase things down like this, I mean—they at least are doing it themselves, you know. This thing just…” Rose ended the sentence simply by raising her arms out in front of her in a telling motion. 

Eileen sat, taking all the information in (and all the missed details she knew must lie between). After a moment, she nodded, solemnly. “Possible giant oil monsters in my backyard. Very cool, very happening, right?” 

Rose raised her eyebrows a little and gave another short laugh. “Sorry. He said they weren’t here, though, yeah? Surely there’s nothing to worry about.” 

Except there was. Both the women knew Rose and The Doctor wouldn’t be here if there was nothing to worry about. 

“Not a thing,” a Scottish voice rang in confirmation out from the beginnings of the small patch of forest on the edge of the land. “Well, maybe one or two things, but no real things. Those things aren’t real things, just sort of—I dunno, oh—-half things? Quarter things? Things that aren’t yet things, but will be things and depending on what kind of things they are could potentially be worrisome things? But every place has those, dozens of them really. And your’s are a bit...different.” He no longer had to raise his voice to be heard; by the time he had finished speaking, he had joined them back at their place by the pond.

“Fun things. Things I’ll come back and check on,” he added, looking down at her with one side of his mouth perched into an intrigued smirk. The center of Eileen’s chest melted at that one. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t think this New Doctor was just a bit unbearably handsome, and that was accompanied by an equally intense sequel to the rush of guilt. She just hoped it wasn’t as obvious on the outside as it was on the inside. No way in hell she could have been the first one smitten, though. Her gaze flickered to Rose.

“You’ll be back?” She managed weakly, willing the words to sound like anything but crude embarrassment. Eileen heard Rose sniff in a purposeful, telling way and knew she had to keep her eyes locked on the empty space between the two of them to keep from ruining this experience for herself. Always a creature of survival, she was. 

“Sure,” said The Doctor, either oblivious or a generous liar, “sometime. Apparently. I couldn’t find anything today, but,” he took two long strides towards the box before twirling around on one heel, “I keep turning up here whether I mean to or not, don’t I? I’ll probably see your little pond again at some point or another, I’d imagine.” 

He had one foot tucked behind the other, and one arm against the outer wall of his ship, propping himself up. His glasses were perched on the end of his nose, catching the last of the sunset that always painted their meetings. His suit, fitted and an appropriate shade of deep blue for the brown in his hair, rose up in the cut of the outstretched leg and arm, exposing the smallest bit of skin underneath. Eileen had definitely lost most of her remaining self control if she was peeking at writsts. 

“Don’t sound so thrilled,” she said, biting into a shy smile. “I’ll be fine.” 

Rose, who had been trailing behind The Doctor, opened the door of the box. Eileen heard an echo of the pulling sound come from within the ship, and something deep inside her pulled with it. 

“It was nice to meet you,” Rose smiled, one foot tucked into the machine, “you’re quite funny, you know. Sorry we can’t stay longer,” She grew an apologetic smile as she tucked herself behind the door. 

Eileen shrugged. “It is what it is,” she said, hoping it would recover her a little, “It was nice to meet you too, Rose Tyler. I hope I see you again sometime.” The girl behind the door grinned, waving her fingers one last time with a flash of her tongue between her teeth before ducking back into their communal box. Eileen sucked in a quick breath. Okay. Both of them were unbearably handsome. The already slightly humiliated girl was glad she hadn’t noticed that too much before. 

Then it was just her and The Doctor there, standing in front of the water. “Don’t feel like you have to make your way back,” she said, giving him the same line Liza gave her friends when she was feeling guilty about a party going bad. “I’m sure it’ll all be fine.” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said, drawing in a breath and titling his head back. “Troubles everywhere, especially places I’m in.” He paused, and took a meaningful look at her. “And for some reason, I can’t keep away from this place, can I?” 

She stood, breath frozen in place while he took one more second to study her over. She lived an entire lifetime in that one second. When he finally spoke again, she felt the air tumble out of her throat with relief and surprise. “I think I may have some unfinished business with you yet, Eileen Frances Moore.” 

Something felt wrong for a moment and she couldn’t place why. She blinked, mouth gaping just a bit. The Doctor met her eyes once more , this time with a touch of concern in his own. 

“Wel—,” he began, taking a step into the box himself, but she cut him off. 

“I never told you my middle name,” she blurted, “or Rose.” There it was. She's sure to thank whatever God may be that she got it before his last impression of her was more like a trout than a woman. 

He turned back, donning the same face of intrigue he had worn at so many other points tonight (glasses falling down his nose, one eyebrow raised, head pushed back). “So you didn’t,” he muttered, barely audible. “How ‘bout that?” 

Then he stepped in the box, pulled whatever levers, pushed whatever buttons, and gave life to the noise that signaled his comings and goings. Once more, Eileen noticed the small ache bleeding out from under her ribs. She also noticed her heart was beating in and out to the same beat of The Doctor’s ship. 

Eileen went to bed that night with more difficulty than any other night she saw him. This time was so much more. She was young, yes, but apparently not drastically younger than his accepted company. The point being, she wasn’t a child. She could speak to him, understand him, and—god—see him. She wondered if the face she’d met the first time had really been just as handsome, and her mind wasn’t trained to notice yet. It didn’t matter, really, because this face was so much more. She committed every detail she could recall to memory, and tried not to dwell on the thought of comparing every one else to him. 

Eileen slept feeling hungry for everything she could possibly consume, food or otherwise. She was now, along with everything else she was before, the girl who saw what she wanted standing right in front of her and who knew she couldn’t have it. She became the girl who became determined to find the next best thing. 

————*————*————

The next time Eileen Frances Moore of Lake Solarious saw The Doctor was another two years and ten months later, in 1965. She hadn’t changed much—in fact, she hadn’t changed much at all since the start of our tale. Eileen simply grew over the person she was before. She was walking layers of her life piled on top of each other, just adding more and more to who she existed as. Everyone grows differently, but that’s how Eileen did it. 

She had been to college, getting the first two years of her degree said and done. She had the standard college experience; tried a few drugs, got a little too drunk, learned how to get very comfortable with someone very soon, and got up and was at the top of her class the next day. Well, maybe Eileen did a little more than the expected experience, she always did a little more than expected. She had a concentration on journalism and psychology, having decided if she couldn’t master the future, she would master the here and now. She learned much and often, experiencing a depose sense of fulfillment and purpose than she was familiar with. She felt good and right. 

Eileen thought of her lonely pond, oh, about once a day, and hoped her schooling wouldn’t keep her from any visitors. Yes, she thought of him just as often, if not more than the little body of water. She never told a soul, not even her sister, who was her best friend without debate. There was always a question of why neither her aunt or sister had never seen her encounters of a fourth kind, but she couldn’t just bring it up to clarify. Not any part of it. She couldn’t tell her friends why nobody ever lived up to what she needed, she couldn’t explain why she wanted who and what she did, why she sometimes stared off into nothing with a look of blissful dreaming, why she never really seemed satisfied. 

Eileen wasn’t—satisfied, that was. How could she possibly be? But she knew these were questions beyond her control, so she looked for her answers (and for him) in other places. She began by spending her time in environments of intellect and open dialogue, listening and joining in to heated discussions and speculations. She’d, for a long time, connected him with the feeling of learning something deeper than words. She would imagine him there, ignoring how she had to guess for most of her internal commentary from his end. Then, sitting there imagining him beside her everyday, it evolved. Eileen wanted more. She wanted it here. 

She started seeking out different places to stimulate her mind. Other times, she found herself in a windowless, smoke filled room where all the patrons wore either turtlenecks or next to nothing. Places where someone pushes your mind to the edges of what you knew, and you seal it with a kiss and then some. Where being and thinking different was something new and fresh to the world. This is where she found herself experimenting with something else new and fresh; psychedelics. It went well the first time, so she kept at it, with caution—like most people in 1965 California. She tried pot; no acid or anything else, but she liked it fine and it was as standard as beer or music, even, where she was. Just because Eileen was smart didn’t mean she was square. 

When someone knew enough to teach her something (which wasn’t often), they and she would spend the night exploring galaxies of their own. Eileen didn’t keep track of how many people she’d been with, but it was anywhere between five and fifteen. 

There were only two she loved, though; a boy, only from afar, who sat in the astronomy section of the library every afternoon, and a girl she’d been with for four amazing and heartbreaking months, Anya. The boy, she never spoke to, but his glasses sat on the end of his nose in the afternoon light and he ran a hand through his messy brown hair periodically. Anya was a sculpture who smoked cigarettes with clay dried on her hands while she gave speeches on the gender revolution. Anya was unavailable, mysterious, dangerously intelligent, and fully committed to her work. She broke up with Eileen three months ago and after two weeks, had a new girl listening to her lectures in her studio. Though Eileen only recognized it about the astronomy boy, she had found The Doctor in both of them. 

No, she didn’t shed anything about her—only built over it. When she was small, she found him in the joys of knowledge. At a freshly twenty, she found him in the joys of knowledgeable people. Eileen always got (and worked for) what she wanted, even if it wasn’t where she wanted it from. This made her a creature of habit, to say the least. She preferred to think of it as being aware of her comforts. 

Right now, that is exactly what she needed; comfort. That’s why, even though she was underdressed for the weather and would most likely catch a cold to top this all off with, she was there. Shivering in shorts cut above the start of her thighs and a ripped Rolling Stones T-Shirt. Her hair was falling loose around her face, cut in honeyed layers to frame her freckles. That’s what she looked like when she had gotten, and placed, the calls.

Before, she’d been listening to her Zombies ‘45, smoking a joint, eating popcorn, and reading about Ptolemy. It was a good night. Then the phone rang. On the other end was a dismissive cop, asking her to come to the station in the morning to identify her aunt’s body. Oh, nobody had called her yet? Well, her registered guardian, Liza Moore, was killed in a car crash about three hours ago. Somehow, she had still mustered up the strength to call Mary, who had another three days of her Thanksgiving break vacation with her friend’s family left to go. Mary had declined when she’d asked her if she would consider coming back early. She’d only had a week off school, she didn’t want to miss her trip, after all.

That’s what left Eileen feeling completely alone. Broken, betrayed, and alone. So, she stormed out to the pier, not even putting on the slippers she’d left by the phone chair. Though, that could have been because of the joint. After fifteen minutes of stubbornly sitting on the cold wood in the dark and waiting for something she had no idea would happen, Eileen began to wonder if maybe the joint was also why she was out here in the brisk, windy air at all. 

The joint that was still sitting in the left side of her bra, along with the also necessary lighter. She figured she’d earned it, what with the having only one living family member left thing going on. She brought the herb, wrapped in its thin paper, to her lips. Bringing her knees to her chest, and cupping her hand around the flint, she lit and inhaled the thick smoke. She licked at the sweet residue on her lips, feeling content in knowing that even though she came out here for him, she stayed for herself. 

Sometime later, a possibly in shock, Eileen snubbed out the final bit of her vice onto the vaguely damp surface beneath her. She relaxed into her high, feeling her muscles tingle out of her body and into her surroundings. She couldn’t really feel the cold anymore, but her limbs and fingers still shook. She thought a swim might warm her up, and her delayed thinking made this a narrowly avoided bad decision. Plus, she forgot about the fish, if they survived her leaving this time around.

It was hard to tell how much time had passed—she’d come outside while the moon was well into its place in the sky. That’s another reason she didn’t actually expect him to show up; he’d always come at sunset. 

Eileen, in fact, had just made the final choice to stand up and make her way blindly into the house when she heard it; the pull she had been waiting for all night. It was here and now, even though her heart was soaring and she was still pretty out of her senses. 

This time, instead of searching for him, all Eileen could do was sit and wait for him to find her. Across the water, as the sound grew clearer, there appeared the first signs of his tiny blue box. Right when she needed it most (possibly emotionally but, she was also just hoping they would have enough time to walk her inside, at least). The box made its way into full view, and after a moment, the door had opened. She waited, again, for what felt like an eternity before a figure finally made its way into the dark. She gave another moment for the second to emerge, but there was no second figure—at least not one coming outside. Against the gleam of the small light on top of the call box, she saw the tips of spiked hair and the curve of hands in pockets. She wondered if his face would be the same. Eileen realized after a second he probably still couldn’t see her. 

“Hey,” she yelled simply. Now she really couldn’t feel the cold. And she could really feel her high. Oh. That’s right. What terrible timing. 

The figure nodded silently and almost slid its way through the rocks, around the water, and to the pier. She begged to whatever God was listening that his face would be the same. The Assumed Doctor was by the Wax Bushes now, so she took a chance, like she always did. 

“I was hoping I would see you tonight,” she admitted, voice raised slightly. 

“Why’s that?” Said a faceless Scottish lilt. She allowed herself a little relief, but not completely. 

“My aunt’s dead. Three—Er, maybe five or six hours ago. I don’t know. I’ve been out here a while. She—...kind of raised me, y’know?” She wasn’t as nervous as usual. Maybe it wasn’t such bad timing. 

The Doctor—and she was completely sure of it now—sat down beside her (a hint closer than he had the first time). She saw his face in the soft glow of night, in a way she hadn’t seen since the first time he left. It was a different face from that one, but it felt the same. Eileen looked at him and saw a marble statue, the kind that look like they have all the knowledge in the world but are doomed to silence. 

“I’m so sorry,” he said, making full and meaningful eye contact with her. He intended to convey sympathy, but she chose to look past the pity and just into his eyes. Eileen thought they looked like a blue night sky in this light, and she hated that she couldn’t remember their real color. 

“I don’t care—I mean, thank you, and of course I care but, like.” She stopped, and gave a bitter smile. “It’s selfish, you know? I loved her so much. Even before she lived here with us. And she’s gone, and that’s so unfair, because horrible people walk around all day being horrible and she would have been so good—,” she knew she was unloading too much, but she had been waiting for exactly this, “—and she can’t now. And that means I can’t. I was so close, you know? I got my bachelor’s early, for christssake, I had two more years.” 

She stopped, finally, realizing she probably wasn’t making much sense anymore. Eileen shifted herself, a bit slowly, to face him, but he was just sitting and looking fiercely at her. Not angry, but like he was deeply hearing everything she had said. She waited another moment, but he just nodded, encouraging her to continue. 

“I—,” she started, before cutting off at feeling the tears finally stinging the corners of her eyes. Then the shame that this, of all things, is what finally stirred it out of her. “I found something I wanted. See, I—oh fuck, whatever—I was never the same after I met you that first time, Doctor, and—,” she felt the warmth of humility rise in her cheeks and was grateful for the poor lighting, “—I spent my whole life looking for something that would make me feel the way I did when I was seven years old and a magical, incredible man showed up to save the beautiful aliens flying around my—My!—backyard. Then I thought of giving lectures at universities, and writing research papers, and making a way for women journalists, and—god—it had to happen again. I had two years left,” she repeated, staring defeatedly at the water below. Eileen felt one tear escape down the cheek closest to The Doctor and suddenly felt his eyes still on her. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping it away and digging her palms into her eyes lightly, just to pretend she could hide for a moment. 

“Why can’t you finish?” He asked, still holding his body towards her in the same way he did before. Though he was mostly facing her, he still lingered in the direction of the water, one arm resting on a raised knee supported by his foot on the pier. 

She sniffed, quite self consciously. “My sister. Just turned seventeen and—there’s no one else. It’s just us two.” The last eight words were spoken with a heavier, more resigned, tone than the rest. Three was company, two is lonely. It was her turn to look at him now. She didn’t want him here just to talk at him, she needed more than that this time around. 

“Say something,” she pleaded, twisting the upper half of her torso further towards him, “please.”

He looked away now, redirecting his eyes back to the water. “I know how you feel,” he answered simply, bringing his other knee up to match the upright one and resting his chin on both. 

She nodded, turning back. “Rose?” Eileen asked, a tense air of caution behind her question. 

He stayed silent for another long moment, before nodding. “Not just—,” another sudden pause, and The Doctor raised his chin, dropping his knees and leaning back against his elbows. Eileen hoped the dark would cover the movement of her eyes down the curve of his body. He wore a slightly too big trench coat over his vaguely crumpled suit, and it folded under him like the robes of a Roman God. Still a haunted marble statue in the end, it seemed. She decided, again, the joint was a mistake, and his voice snapped her back into reality just after coming to that conclusion (with no trace of catching her regrettable leers). 

“She’s not dead, she’s just. In. A parallel world. Forever, you know how it goes,” he said, throwing his hands up, just as Rose did when describing the giant oil monsters. “I can never see her again, and, well, I had so many things I wanted to do, you see, I—,” he ended with a laugh, a bitter and pained laugh. Just like Eileen’s, a moment ago. She waited, desperate for him to continue speaking, no matter the subject. “It’s just not fair, and—,” another pause, and this time he didn’t seem to give in to the pressing of her patient silence. 

“Please,” she nodded towards him, “No offense, but you make my troubles sound like nothing, so don’t feel like you can’t talk. Or—shit, I’m sorry, you don’t have to either, I just—,” Eileen broke off, cheeks burning red, and probably at least slightly visible even in this light. “I’d really like to hear something from you.” 

Fortunately, The Doctor just laughed, pulling out his elbows from under him and lying back fully on the pier. “Why, Eileen Moore, get a load of the potty mouth on you this time around,” he grinned, putting his arms behind his head and crossing his ankles. 

She continued to face the water, but closed her eyes and smiled a lopsided and lazy grin. Given the circumstances, she felt good; partly the high, partly hearing her name roll off his tongue. Tonight, she was allowed her selfish indulgences, as long as there was no evidence. She decided part of this was stopping the charade. “Alright,” she admitted, still smiling and leaning back on her elbows to be more level with him, “I’m fucking stoned.”

He blinked before giving way to the humor and dissolving into a fit of laughter alongside her. They did so with their whole bodies, from the situation and the simple need for laughter. Eileen felt her left elbow give out under the weight of giggles and her body tip to the side as a result of which. When she opened her eyes a moment later, she saw that her and The Doctor were inches apart. Closer than she had ever been to him before. She took the briefest second to look at his face, distorted with joy, and noticed the faintest spray of freckles that were barely visible under the light of the moon. She quickly closed her eyes, stored the memory, and moved back another inch or two—just to be safe. Indulgences, remember?

“Of course you are,” he said, moving back himself and running a hand through his hair. “Of course you are, you little flower child.” This last bit was said with a quick wink and a cheeky grin as the last of the laughter dissolved. He truly looked relaxed, just laying against the wood. They sat, enjoying the sound of wind on drying grass, before The Doctor spoke up again. 

“I know how it feels. Watching the people around you all...leave,” he bit the last word off, choosing his wording carefully and finding the harsh reality of it painfully familiar. “And you’re too young to have seen so much of that already. That doesn’t change the fact that you have. You’re right, it’s not fair. Never is, but things like this…for people like you, and me, and all the other people who have lived, died, and lost—well, at risk of sounding a touch insensitive, they were meant to happen. Your aunt’s life was her own, hopefully quite fulfilling, story that ended exactly where it needed to within your’s.” 

She let her head fall to the side thoughtfully and looked at him, starting to feel the invasive stinging of cold dig into her skin. The Doctor stared straight up into the stars, eyes full of a hurt she could see went farther than time could record.

She realized something that she’d never thought of before. 

For the first time, Eileen considered the possibility that these trips—this life—didn’t come free to him. She felt the cling of dryness in her throat and on her lips as she spoke, softly against the night air. 

“What you must have had to sacrifice to be this free,” she said, barely above a whisper, “I can’t imagine what you had to say goodbye to.” She hadn’t really noticed she’d said it out loud; it hit her with such an intensity internally that she wasn’t surprised some of it leaked into the outside world. Nonetheless, it made him turn his head to face her, meeting her eyes with no desire to hide his searching of her face. She didn’t flinch, but it did startle her a bit, to be so seen by him. 

“Yeah,” he muttered, brows knit together in concentration, “thank you.” Eileen didn’t know exactly for what, but she hoped it was simply for seeing it. She didn’t really care either way, she was content at just not having said something wrong. They looked into each other’s eyes, slightly hidden in the darkness, both searching for answers about the other in the dark. 

“You’re shaking,” he noticed. Then sat up, shrugging off his coat and handing it over to her. Eileen felt a warm pull in her gut from the gesture and reached up to accept it, sitting tall and sliding the coat over her shoulders. It was warm, and smelled like old book pages and the deep spiced scent men always seem to have. 

Her head was swimming with questions about him, but she settled on one. “How old are you, Doctor?” 

He gave her another small smirk and a mischievous look from the corner of his eye. “How old do you think I am?” 

She pursed her lips in consideration and rested her chin on her knees. She saw him with three faces; the first, a slightly older than grown man who she met for the first time; the second, as a very old man, who had never met her at all; and now the third, who looked younger than all the rest, yet held the memories of all the faces before. She didn’t know what to make of it. 

“Trick question. Even you don’t know,” she hummed, turning to give him that lazy grin again. 

“904,” he said, lolling his head over to give her the same grin in return.

Eileen let out a short, surprised laugh. That’s not the answer she’d been expecting in the least. “Jesus, how can you even keep track anymore?” 

He shrugged, not giving an answer. She decided to ask another. “Is that why your face changes? You grow old, just to start again?” 

“More like, I die and someone else comes in to pick up where the story left off.” 

She nodded, thinking she understood what he meant, but not being certain. “How long does each one last?” 

He shrugged, again, still not turning to look at her. “That’s the part I always have trouble keeping track of.” 

She smiled, enjoying the thought of him not knowing or caring what face he wore. “That’s kind of nice. To be sitting with someone older than even the country I live in. Older than anything—well, almost anything—I’ve seen. Very, very cool.” 

She saw him smile in return, and they sat, silent for another moment before his voice cut into her thoughts. “You could come with me, you know. We could go wherever you wanted and be back here in five minutes.” 

For fourteen years Eileen imagined what the inside of that tiny box must look like. She imagined the places and people he had met, dreamed of joining him to events she had read about and worlds she would never know. Now, in this moment, she had her chance. It really was here and now. She couldn’t stand how truly and unbelievably unfair it all was. 

Through the swelling of sadness in her throat, she choked out, “I can’t,” before letting the tears fall freely this time. “I can’t leave Mary alone, I can’t even—,” a full body sob interrupted her as the intensity of the night set into her bones, “—I can’t even take the chance, Doctor, I—if something happened she’d be alone, and.” She didn’t finish the sentence, just pulled her knees up to her chest and put her head in her hands. His coat fell at the shift and draped itself over her bent and crying body, like a curtain. Suddenly, she felt the warmth of what must have been his arm around her shoulders. 

“I know,” he said, attempting a soothing tone that actually came out with a bitterness he hadn’t intended to share. She wanted to pull herself from her sadness to be able to feel what it was like to have him next to her. She wanted to, but she couldn’t—she wouldn’t. Liza deserved her tears, so for a few more minutes Eileen gave them. Eventually, she noticed the pressure of his hand gliding slowly up and down the side of her arm through the coat. She didn’t feel his skin, just the warm weight of him there. Enough tears had been shed for her to allow the feeling the comfort to sink fully through the fabric. 

“I’m sorry,” she hiccuped, picking her head up from its place on her knees. He had moved to sit against her, one hand soothing her and the other clenched into a fist on his thigh. She saw that anger again in his features as he looked over the water, and a panic boiled inside her stomach. But then he shook his head, sighing. 

“No, I’m sorry, that—it was selfish of me to ask. Especially after...after what happened to Rose. I shouldn’t have made you make that choice, Eileen.” His voice revealed that the anger in his expression wasn’t because of her, but himself. She didn’t like that. She didn’t want him to feel like what he offered was a burden, like he should keep it to himself. 

“Do not!” Eileen looked at him earnestly, and mourned the loss of his warmth as he slipped his arm off of her and slid back an inch or two. His face sprang into surprise as he met her suddenly stern tone. She must have looked a bit unhinged, she considered, softening her face a bit. 

“Don’t be sorry, don’t ever feel sorry for that. I haven’t stopped wondering about you since you showed up to take my fairies home. Since I met Rose, and I saw she was still just as fascinated by you as me, even though she seemed to know you so well. I want to go with you so bad—you have no idea how bad. I never knew it was a possibility until last time, and you should have someone with you. Earth itself is too big of a place to be alone in, and you, Doctor, can go wherever was and will be. It just can’t be me next to you, but I can’t tell you how much I love knowing you would even ask.” Vulnerability coursed through her due to the delicate mix of tears, pot, and him. The man in the magic box who swept her whole life up in his wake. 

“Just tell me you won’t be alone, Doctor.” 

His look of surprise shifted back into the searching expression he had held before. 

“I won’t,” he said quietly, hands still tightened into fists. “No, I—,” The Doctor turned suddenly to face ahead of him, and he blinked, “I won’t do it alone.” She heard traces of pain in his voice. 

“I—you. You should go get some rest, Eileen.” Confliction fell across his features and he ran a hand through his hair. She wanted to fall asleep right here, to never leave this spot with him. But she could see he had his own battles to fight tonight. 

She nodded, giving him a tired smile. “Okay. Um,” her eyes shifted behind her towards her patio door, then down to the water in embarrassment, “could you maybe help me inside? There’s a lot of rocks here, and I don’t have my shoes.” She heard him laugh again, and she was grateful at the relief in the tension.

“Course I can,” he grinned, working himself up to a standing position over her, “Come on.” Eileen looked up and saw his hand extended to her in assistance. 

Since their previous interaction, Eileen had begun to notice the intrusive thoughts that flooded her mind when she touched someone. She had casually brought it up with her fellow beatnik intellectuals, but they had spoken of perception in details and the stigma around firm handshakes rather than the brief moment of feeling something that definitely wasn’t their own. She never brought it up again, but had slowly started to tune herself into the things she felt when her skin touched someone else’s. She experimented with subtly mentioning the things she felt, and found that most people reacted in a way that made her decide what she was feeling was them. What they were feeling, or pushing deep down inside themselves in order not to feel. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know how, and she didn’t even know if it was really true. But she noticed it, and saw results. 

Now, as The Doctor held his hand out, waiting for her to take it, she was faced with a decision. 

She took it, and everything rushed into her like waves on a shore during a hurricane; low rumblings of darkness and streaks of pure, unfiltered electricity. 

He wasn’t a statue, he was a storm. 

She felt the echoes of ancient memories, and the fresh cut of pain from the new ones. She felt abandonment, betrayal, responsibility, and most of all, loneliness. Oh, so very alone. She felt the passing of faces and names and love, but there, at the end of everything, was loneliness. 

Eileen couldn’t help but pull her hand back with a gasp, and looked up at him with an expression that could have been easily mistaken for horror. Much to her surprise, he was wearing the same. For a moment, neither of them said anything, possibly unsure there was anything to say. Eileen’s head fell back down with a hint of shame as she stood up (on her own). She shouldn’t have done it, but if she had ever had any doubt about her ability, it was gone now. She’s never felt so much from anyone else she had ever touched. She had never felt something so endless.

Finally, if only to break the silence, she spoke. “Promise me you won’t be alone,” she said again, not looking at him. She didn’t know what he had felt, but judging from the face she had seen, it was clearly something. It didn’t matter; this was the most important thing to her right now. 

“I promise,” she heard him say, a slight break of voice in his ‘promise’. “How—Eileen, what was that?” There was a sternness in his tone now, just like last time.

“I don’t know,” she sighed, standing up and still forcing her eyes down, “but it’s why I wouldn’t shake your hand when we first met.” She felt embarrassed and guilty and being caught in her invasion of privacy, even if it had sometimes seemed like only a figment of her wild imagination at times. “Nobody’s ever felt it back before, I never really knew it was anything at all until now.” 

“Because you felt something inhuman.” 

This made her face him now, seeing that same need for answers in his eyes— this time paired with disciplined determination. 

“Yeah,” she said quietly, chewing on her full bottom lip. Her hair fell in front of her eyes, and she pushed it behind her ear. “What did you feel?” 

His face broke a bit, softened by pity. Eileen didn’t like pity. Her cheeks burned. 

“I felt someone who deserves more than what she’s gotten and knows it. I felt a lingering and long time sadness, but underneath all of that, I felt a sense of wonder and love. Hope, I think. I felt someone who only wants to explain and understand. A feeling I know very well. What was that, Eileen, and why did it happen?” He asked the last question with intent, forcing her to meet his eyes again, though he’d also purposefully softened his words to make her feel safe.

“I don’t know,” she said again, “I didn’t really notice it until recently, I swear.” She couldn’t help but feel like she did something wrong. That feeling was what drove her to slide his coat off and offer it back to him. The Doctor shook his head, softening his expression further, a hint of guilt seeping into it. 

“It’s cold, keep it until we’re inside. You noticed it when you were young because children aren’t weighed down by the distractions of humanity and all that it brings with it. That’s why humans think babies are so gifted, when really they just haven’t been corrupted by everything else yet. You spoke to me, yet, you knew you shouldn’t touch me. Then you changed your mind. It—,” a sigh, “—makes sense.” 

Eileen nodded, her own feelings of guilt receding. “So, why can I do it? Should I be able to? Can everyone else do it and just not know?” 

The Doctor shook his head, beginning to walk up the small hill towards her house. She reluctantly followed, hugging his coat to her while she still could. 

“I’m not sure. Gallifreyan’s—that’s, erm, my people—they have something similar, several species do, actually. But not humans, no. For all the species that have telepathic links or abilities—which, if I had to guess, that’s what’s happening here—it’s not just limited to touch. Most of the time, you pick up something just from being around them, and more through touch. What do you feel around other people?” 

She kept her eyes on her feet, watching her steps carefully and occasionally grabbing his elbow when she stumbled. It wasn’t just the high, she’d had quite the night, and knew sleep wouldn’t come with difficulty despite it. 

“My stuff, I think,” she answered, considering it carefully, “but now that you’re asking me, I’m not sure. I mean, empathy is real, right? I can just see how someone feels and feel it in myself, can’t I?” 

He nodded, helping her avoid stepping right into a small hole in the dirt without touching their skin. “Easy,” he warned. “But sure, yeah. That’s real. Is that what you do though? Are you looking and noticing, or noticing then looking?” The question threw her for a second, and she really thought about it as they took the final steps into the glow of her patio light. 

“I don’t know,” she finally answered, approaching the door. It felt a little good to not have to watch him leave for once. 

The Doctor, who had stopped just before her to keep a respectable distance from the door, nodded again. They held each other’s gaze, this time with more illumination. She realized at some point in their time together, he’d taken off his glasses. No point in the dark, she supposed, then wondered how clearly he could see her (and how clearly she really wanted him to). His face held curiosity and traces of something not quite as unpleasant as regret. 

“You start to make less sense every time I come here, you know.” It sounded more like a compliment than an insult. “I love a good puzzle.” His features lit up with another, more conclusive, grin and everything else there slipped away. 

The sadness she felt at their departure did too. “So you’ll be back, I take it?” 

“Oh, yes,” The Doctor said, as if it was obvious, “can’t exactly let this go unchecked, can I? Not really my style. This could turn into something real bad if I did. Could be something waiting around for it to finish, erm, setting up, I guess, so it can take it. Or you could just be someone with a special sort of history, I think. Bit set on figuring out which one, really.” 

She smiled and thought of the Solarious, unseen oil creatures, and this funny little man dashing around finding everything out for himself. Eileen finally slid off the coat once again, only smelling the memory of it as she handed it back. The Doctor took it this time, slinging it over his shoulder and shoving his hands in his pockets. 

“Thank you for listening to me,” she said, genuinely radiating with gratitude. 

He gave her another soft smile and a polite tilt of his head. She looked over his face, at his sharp bone structure and the way the depth of his eyes contrasted the youthfulness of his clothes, shoes, and beautifully messy hair. He was so casual, so seemingly modest, for someone who’s seen so much. 

“What’s the date?” He asked, suddenly. 

“November 27th, 1965,” she answered without hesitance. 

“Then I’ll see you November 27th, 1966, Eileen Francis Moore. You can tell me all about it then.” The Doctor looked at her one final time, and she at him, before she allowed him his leave. They both wanted to remember one another. 

“See you then, Doctor,” she said, knowing the days would start to feel like years. With a faux salute and a wink, The Doctor turned on his heel and made his way back to the box. Eileen made hers inside before she had to hear the sound of him leaving. That night, she went into a deep sleep and stayed that way until her body felt she was ready to exist again. 

She woke up the girl who had given up everything she wanted for the happiness of someone who needed her. She didn’t know it, but she was also the girl with The Doctor’s admiration for it, and a folded up trench coat sitting on the end of her pier to show as such. Eileen didn’t know this either, but he’d had another one in his ship that was given to him by someone he’d think she’d really like in a year or two. 

————*————*————

Exactly one year later, on November 27th, 1966, Eileen was sitting on the pier, still wearing the white blouse, brown pencil skirt, and argyle tights she’d worn for her short day on the clock. She was now twenty-one, and with her Bachelor’s Degree in journalism (and plenty of encouraging references), she’d gotten a job teaching it at the local high school. It wasn’t the same as teaching in a university—or even being in one, for that matter—much less working at a respectable publication like she wanted. Her students were there because they had to be, and few had any interest in what she was saying. She was new, and was still trying to figure out how to cultivate some intrigue from them. 

They liked her well enough, but not because of her subject. She only recently learned she could use her youth and “coolness” to her advantage when she was teaching. She’d avoided talking about her time in the underground scene, for fear of them connecting the dots with her recreational activities. They did, but in 1966, it actually made them see her more of a respectable authority figure. She was thinking about how to come back after their break and walk that fine line between teacher and peer without concerning her own authority figures. Eileen was sorting meticulously between appropriate and inappropriate stories, and carefully avoiding thinking about her real issue at hand; Mary. 

Mary was one school year away from graduating and had recently been talking about potential colleges she could apply to. Eileen had every intention to support her sister, and if she had been in a magazine, or monthly periodical maybe, rather than a high school, she may have had the means to do so. That wasn’t the situation she was in, however, so she had a bit of a problem on her hands. She pushed her light brown bangs, now cut into the fringed shag that was popular at the time, out of her eyes. She had to wear her hair in a carefully styled ponytail to avoid distrusting looks from the older members of the faculty. 

She’d recently realized she would probably have to get a part time job in order to be able to ensure her sister wouldn’t have to go without certain advantages. Eileen hoped her teaching dress code would hold up everywhere else too. She remembered The Doctor’s words from last time; ‘I felt someone who deserves more than what she’s gotten and knows it.’ She did know it, regrettably. That didn’t stop her from wanting to give Mary the life Liza was ready to give them both. The harder it felt, the more she’d think of Liza (and The Doctor). For three months, her days seemed to grow longer and longer in anticipation. Especially this afternoon, when she couldn’t stop checking outside her kitchen window—the one with the perfect few of her pond—for his blue box by the water. Which is why she was determined to think of anything but him right now; so her minutes wouldn’t feel like years (it was only barely working). 

After anywhere between half an hour and another fourteen years, she had just (very carefully) decided that the story where she and the forty-five year old film reel worker of the town’s drive in theater stayed until last call debating the real reasons behind the French Revolution—only if she changed ‘last call’ to ‘drive in closing’ (and left out the part where they spent the rest of the night in the shed where they kept the film rolls). She was just about to move on to the one where her and the drive-in guy broke into the library to check a copy of the constitution for clarity reasons when she heard her favorite sound in the world. 

Clear as day, the pushing and pulling of that amazing box into her reality. 

Jumping to her feet, Eileen faced where he always appeared and watched in wonder as it slowly crept into visibility. The sun was still fairly high into the afternoon sky and she prayed that would allow her more time. A second later, it was fully there and the door opened. From behind it stepped, to her relief, the same Doctor she had seen last time. Time had passed for him as well, no doubt, not only obvious because of the different colored suit he was wearing, but because from out behind him emerged another figure. 

Eileen saw first; a woman in a dark red fitted leather jacket, and secondly; that the woman was Black, with her hair spiked behind her in a style Eileen had never seen in 1966. The woman’s skin didn’t affect her at all (despite her time), yet her hair and clothes made her wonder how far into the future she must have traveled from. She was dressed similar to Rose, maybe, but Eileen couldn’t yet tell. 

When they had fully emerged, she gave a frantic wave over the water at them both. She knew he’d know just where to look, and he did. He greeted her with an equally enthusiastic wave, before turning to say something to his travel companion. Eileen stayed where she was as the two made their way to the pier (he always stayed longer when they met there). 

Once they were within ear shot, she gave a warm, “Hey,” and a smile so wide it hurt the corners of her mouth. 

Fortunately, The Doctor seemed just as pleased to see her. “Hello, old friend. Eileen Frances Moore, may I have the honor to present Doctor Martha Jones.” The words ‘old friend’ turned her grin into a giddy, now slightly suppressed smile. 

“Nice to meet you, Martha Jones,” she said just as professionally, giving a theatrical bow. She did it because she’d notice neither had offered their hand, and she needed to divert her mind from wondering if that’s what he had said to her when they arrived. Eileen hadn’t forgotten that part of their last evening. 

Martha gave a generous laugh, and returned the bow. “And you, Miss Moore.” True to expectations, she was also British.

“You just can’t stay away from the English girls, can you?” Eileen teased, turning to The Doctor with a suspiciously amused look. 

“Can’t stay away from here either, can I,” he said simply, looking around at the pond. “Always looks the same, this place. You.” There was something else behind his words, but she preferred their less serious talks. 

Eileen shrugged in response, not wanting to set the mood in stone so soon. “It’s a pond, how much can it change?” Martha let out a short giggle, and they met in an appreciative glance at the jibe. 

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Yep, this was a mistake, I don’t think I really want you two working together.” 

“I do,” Martha smirked, “‘bout two words in and she’s already gotten one on ya’. You know,” she turned to Eileen, smile turning devious, “I’m pretty tired of the whole ‘knock your socks off’ thing myself, you know? ‘Oh Doctor, save us, Doctor, thank you, Doctor’.” She was obviously joking, face too friendly to be speaking seriously. It was a big change after thoroughly and obviously smitten Rose. 

Eileen matched the other woman’s energy and crossed her arms, feigning skepticism in his direction. “No, I’m not buying that one,” she shook her head, “every time he’s here, he just looks confused and asks too many questions for my liking.”

Martha scoffed, and turned to face him, surprised. “That’s rare. How many times have you been here then, Doctor?” 

He rubbed at the back of his neck, with the other hand already shoved into his pocket, and looked away from the two scheming others. 

“Have I been here? Oh, I dunno, this is, what? Fifth time, I’d reckon?” He ended the sentence with a breath, biting at his lip. 

Martha lost the joke in her expression. “You’ve been here five times?” Eileen, who had been working on figuring out the answer to his last question, felt a small pull of jealousy in her gut. She knew it wasn’t her’s. 

“Been to London a lot more times than that,” he squawked in defense, brows pulling together as they did so often. The feeling of someone else’s jealousy faded, and Martha looked away, saying nothing. He turned to Eileen now, face relaxing again. 

“So, you,” The Doctor began, head tilting back once more, “what’s new?” 

She shrugged, unsure what he was really asking and not wanting to reveal to Martha the topic that was being unsaid after what had just happened. “Nothing weird, if that’s what you mean. For me, anyways.” 

He shook his head. “We’ll get there, but how are you? How’s your sister, your life?” Concern was fixed in his eyes, and she registered that maybe—just maybe—he genuinely cared. She didn’t know if that was realization, or something she picked up from him, but she prayed for the latter. 

“Fine, really,” she sighed, shrugging once more. She was embarrassed at remembering how emotional she let herself be last time. “I teach a sort of diet journalism at a high school now. It’s not what I wanted, you know, but it could be worse. Mary’s a junior now—different place—so I’ll probably have to pick up a part time job just to get her through college, but I’m really pleased she wants to go still.” She didn’t say it to vent her problems again, but because she was truly proud her sister wanted to get an education. 

“That’s brilliant,” The Doctor agreed, nodding with not quite a full smile gracing his lips. 

Martha watched on, not completely understanding, but obviously having been filled in to some part of the story. “Where’s Mary now?” She asked, caution in her voice at the fear of prying. 

Eileen met her tone with a reassuring smile and answered. “She’s with her friends. I don’t think she likes being here over holidays,” she admitted, shrugging again. 

Mary definitely did not. They only spent a small part of Christmas morning together last year before she was heading out to whatever friend’s wouldn’t be put out by her being there. She couldn’t blame her; it was lonely. Mary just didn’t realize she was leaving Eileen alone too (she hoped). Martha nodded, apology etched across her features. Eileen didn’t like the pity, but didn’t hold it against her either, so she smiled once more. She didn’t want to be reminded of the sadness in her situation, but nobody let her forget. 

“But how are you?” The Doctor asked, pulling her back into the moment. “How are you yourself, Eileen?” 

She met his eyes, and felt another tinge of a jealousy that couldn’t have belonged to her. She knew what she felt was seen. She felt her own pity for Martha, and knew that after what she picked up from him in their last exchange, he must have built up high walls in order to be able to share this life again. It didn’t come free, she remembered. Finally, when she pushed through the present, she could answer. 

“I’m good,” she met his eyes with a smile, “Very lucky, am I not?” 

He threw her back another half smile, this time with hints of that admiration she wasn’t aware of. “That’s good. I had hoped so.” 

A beat of silence passed again before she spoke up, turning to Martha in an effort to include her. “So,” she said in a breath, “where were you guys before this? Mars?” 

“London, actually,” she answered. “Tackling a few nasties around a little shopping district, when all of a sudden, this girl runs up to The Doctor wondering why he didn’t remember her. When all was said and done, and we were back in the TARDIS, he says to me she reminded him of someone he had an appointment with, and here we are.” She raised her hands to show the conclusion of her story. 

Eileen blinked, a look of confusion crossing over her face. 

“What the hell is a TARDIS? How often does this happen to you?” She turned to The Doctor, expression now bleeding into something like accusation. 

He threw his hands up in defense. “Not as often as you’d think. The TARDIS is my ship, you really didn’t know that after all this time?” 

She felt a flush crawl up the back of her neck. She hadn’t known, and didn’t like suddenly feeling the reality of how little she actually knew him. “No,” she said, chewing at her bottom lip, “you never said.” Though, it was nice to not have to constantly refer to it as ‘the blue box’ now. 

He nodded, glancing at the quiet Martha. “That’d be my fault, then. Can we pop inside, Eileen? Your house, I mean. It’s a bit chilly out, don’t you think?” 

She felt another wave of heat come over her, this time for a different reason. He’d never come inside before, and she never had any reason to believe he would. Panic replaced the flush as she tried, frantically and subtly, to remember whether she had cleaned or not.

“Yeah,” she said, eyebrows raised in surprise and distress at her own unanswered question, “of course, ah, follow me.” She started her way up the low hill, the other two following behind her. She heard the same small whirling she heard on the night Rose visited and wondered what device The Doctor was fiddling. 

They crossed the distance past the threshold and into her slightly messy, but mostly tidy home. She hadn’t changed it a lot since Liza died, and hadn’t really felt the need to. Her aunt had taste before anything else, after all. 

They walked in through the kitchen, where pale green paint graced the cabinets against a matching floral patterned backsplash. Adjoined was a dining area, where a blue vinyl table sat across a buffet cabinet lined with lava lamps of various sizes and colors. Overhead hung a three tiered wooden bead light pendant. The room had an open floor concept with the living room, donned appropriately with deep emerald shag carpet. The furniture was slightly geometric, ranging from crisp clean cubes in the cabinets and tables of deep brown wood, to stretching outward angles in the lamps and seating of jewel tones and gold. Framed art and small shelves were scattered over one large wall in an otherwise empty room, save for the burnt orange paint, the only thing Eileen wanted to change. 

She heard Martha draw in a breath. “Wow,” she said, stepping inside and looking around. “This is a real sixties pad, huh? Look at that carpet, that’s got to be a good two inches thick!” She was grinning and sincerely, so Eileen didn’t take it for an insult. 

“It is the 60’s,” she smiled, kicking off her shoes by the door. The other two took notice, and followed politely behind her, without question. She didn’t know why she was surprised to see The Doctor in socks. He looked good in her house, though, towering high over her inthe place her days passed her by. 

“Right,” she said, snapping herself back to the here and now once again. “Pick a room, any room. Take a tour, for all I care,” the last part was said with a wink in Martha’s direction. Eileen didn’t ignore her appearance either, and it felt like less of an intergalactic crime to flirt with the accompanying parties. And Eileen had learned she did quite like to flirt. 

Martha raised her eyebrows and returned a cheeky smile, throwing a darting glance in the looming, disapproving man’s direction. Eileen didn’t know if Martha was checking his reaction, or simply seeing if it was okay. She decided, very shortly after, that she didn’t really care either. 

The Doctor snorted and rolled his eyes. “It’s like bloody Jack all over again,” he said before taking about six or seven long strides into the living room and plopping on the left side couch. She didn’t get it, but whatever it was made Martha laugh. 

“Shakespeare,” Martha said, tossing another casual grin at Eileen as she passed and joined him on the empty side. 

“You met Shakespeare?” She couldn’t hide the wonder in her voice as she joined them, but on the loveseat closest to The Doctor instead. 

“Oh, yeah,” he said, draping his arm along the length of the couch. “He took a fancy to our dear Martha, as well.” 

Eileen smirked, seeing—and feeling—a swell of pride from Martha’s direction. She took the bait, after considering it harmless in the end. She met eyes with the other woman, who had shrugged off the bit of attention too quickly. 

“Bet a lot of people you meet take fancy with our dear Martha, don’t they?” She felt a sudden surge of heat in the center of the other women’s chest echo into her own. That’s why she had a new love for flirtation. She got to experience it on both ends. 

A brief, confused smile fell over Martha, with an accompanying giggle and the feeling of questioning as to if that was what she thought it had been. It was. Eileen smiled and lowered her eyes a bit, keeping hold of Martha’s (quite pretty) gaze through her lashes as she shifted nervously in her spot to get the point across. 

“Can—,” Martha said suddenly, breaking into a fully nervous smile now, “Could I use your loo?” 

Eileen grinned, leaned back, and crossed her legs. “Down the hall, last door on the right,” she said, pointing down the hallway that began just behind The Doctor’s side of the couch. Martha nodded with appreciation before standing and walking where she had been advised. 

When the sound of the bathroom door closing hit the living room, The Doctor finally turned to look at Eileen, business as usual. “Need I ask if you’ve been working on it?” His voice held a disapproving tone in it. 

She smiled sheepishly at him, meeting his gaze reluctantly. “I think you caught on. Don’t be mad, it’s fun. And virtually nothing.” She felt the shame at being discovered wash over her when he obviously didn’t find it as funny. Not so harmless after all, maybe. 

“It’s invasive,” The Doctor frowned. “Look, I know you can’t help it, but I think you can help stirring things up on purpose, can you not?” His voice raised the smallest octave in frustration when he arrived at the accusation’s end. 

“It stops at flirting,” she protested, crossing her arms this time. “One little comment here or there, just to see how they feel about, is that really the end of the world? I can’t put anything into their heads, all I get is their honesty. Not to be creepy, just to know, you know?” 

“Well,” The Doctor huffed, “no—I mean, yes, you should really work on not picking up on other people's emotions as a whole, but—I suppose it’s not the end of the world, no. Don’t—I mean, please, don’t—do it to Martha right in front of me, though. Kinda much, don’t you think? Also a bit ethically questionable as a whole, but. You know. I trust you’re not malicious.”

She felt like a kid being lectured, and she hated that feeling. So she changed it (even if he was right). 

“Why?” She asked, face cooling into a smile as she met his gaze once again, “want me to flirt with you instead? Give a more experienced mind a go, instead? Try out the big leagues? Would it be better if the brain was, what do you call it? Girthier?” She blinked slowly, still smiling and resting her head against the side of the chair and hoping to everything she wasn’t humiliating herself too terribly.

“No,” he said sternly and quickly. He had his eyebrows raised as he pointed his finger to her, “no.” She thought she saw the faintest tinge of pink in his cheeks. She searched for something that wasn’t her own in the air, but only found confusion. 

“What?” Martha asked from the mouth of the hallway. She was still smiling nervously, but this time for different reasons. This time, because she didn’t understand again. Hence, the confusion that wasn’t the hostess’.

“Oh, dear Martha,” Eileen said, giving the left out woman all of her attention, “I think I owe you an apology.” She sounded flirty, but completely and honestly, only by accident. 

“For what?” She asked, crossing back to her place on the couch and sitting down, not really seeming troubled so far. 

“For messing with you,” Eileen smiled, sincerely, “just to see if you’d be into it. And using my super secret weird brain stuff to feel your emotions across the room without telling you. That wasn’t cool, you just got here.” She leaned back in her chair, having made her penance and offering no other explanation. 

“Oh no, I—,” Martha blushed wearing a stunned smile now, “Can’t say I minded. I’m into blokes, obviously—er, well it just surprised me, that’s all,” she shrugged, “you wouldn’t think, in the 60’s. What weird brain stuff?”

“You wouldn’t think, in the 60’s,” The Doctor smirked, emphasizing the ‘you’ and letting his head fall back on the couch. “Good, old Eileen, here, is a bit of a telepath, I think. Partly why I keep coming back to check in now.” Martha only raised her eyebrows and nodded, saying nothing herself. Eileen wondered what she must have encountered to make her take something like that in stride. 

“So,” Eileen interrupted, suddenly aware of the passing of time, “tell me about what you’ve been doing. And don’t call me ‘good, old Eileen’ again, I sound like your grandma.”

The trio sat, for an undesignated amount of time, chatting away about things not only Martha and The Doctor had been up to, but Eileen as well. 

“I think, if I don’t mention the thing in the backseat, and maybe the bar, I can tell them that one,” the hostess laughed, finishing her story. 

The two on the couch joined in, thoroughly having a good time. The sun had set a while ago, and shortly after, Eileen offered beer and the stash box hidden under the end table next to the loveseat. Martha, with another eye roll from The Doctor, had accepted both. The Doctor, ever the role model, had taken neither. 

Eileen figured she might be seeing the sun again soon, but Liza never kept a clock in the living room for that soul purpose. 

Nonetheless, she must not have been alone in her suspicion, because as soon as the laughter subsided, The Doctor stretched his hands out in front of him, and faced Martha. 

“Think it’s time we headed back, yeah?” He didn’t sound all that happy about it himself, which comforted Eileen the slightest bit. 

Martha frowned, but nodded, turning to inspect the fading darkness just outside the window. “Reckon so, yeah,” she nodded reluctantly. 

Eileen took her cue, and stood while stifling a yawn. Their announcement had made her feel the hour, apparently. The Doctor stood as well, smiling a bit gently at her tired presentation. She had long abandoned her careful pony and let her hair tumble messily around her face. Her clothes, now switched out for fitted cropped pants and too large pale sweater, were wrinkled from folding her feet onto the couch. 

“You should get some rest, Eileen Moore,” he said, giving Martha a moment to rise with him. 

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said, shaking her head, “the second my head hits the pillow, I’d expect.” Martha laughed and chimed up in agreement, and the three made their way back to the door. 

“Where will you go next?” Eileen asked as the two worked their shoes back on. 

“Maybe London again?” The Doctor suggested, looking back to Martha. When he caught site of her wrinkled nose, he added, “Or Neptune, post Neptunian colony of 4523.” 

Martha gave a more gracious look at this one, and turned back to Eileen. 

“It’s been a pleasure,” she grinned with a wicked look in her eye. After a beer or two and a light, Martha had started initiating the flirt in again on her own, much to The Doctor’s dismay. 

“Not as much as it could’ve been,” she joked, enjoying the annoyed groan from the annoyed third wheel. 

Martha laughed with her, and forgetting the warning she had gotten in the beginning of the night, took Eileen in for a hug. 

Over her shoulder, Eileen and The Doctor met eyes in a look of panic, and she grabbed Martha by the covered arms of her jacket before pushing her back. Eileen gave one reassuring roll of the thumb at catching sight of the other’s anxious face before pulling her hands back in. 

“Right,” Martha nodded in realization. “Well, Eileen. Good-bye, I guess,” she threw Eileen one last, almost apologetic, smile before stepping past The Doctor and through the back door. 

“Close one,” he smirked, nodding, when the door shut behind her. 

“Hmm,” Eileen hummed in a tired (a little defeated) and agreeing sort of way. 

He looked at her one more brief moment before saying, “I’ll see you again, Eileen. Next year. Don’t make plans.” 

Eileen gave him a one more brief, sleepy smile. “I’ll be right here, Doctor.” And she meant it. She would. 

This time she stayed up to watch them duck into the TARDIS yeah, much easier to say) and fade from sight. 

She went to bed content. She went to bed the girl who found joy in the life she built. She went to bed as the girl that joy came to visit once a year. 

————*————*————

One year later, at age twenty-two in 1967, Eileen sat on her pier. Time had passed, as it always did. This year, she had found someone. A man this time, named Simon. She couldn’t help but feel guilty over her plans for the night. Simon was busy with his latest research paper this evening, and she was meeting the man who he so often reminded her of. Simon also had messy brown hair and glasses on the end of his nose at all the right times, but instead of a pin stripped and fitted suit, he preferred turtlenecks and blazers. The thinking that was apparent on his face was a mere echo of the man he slightly resembled. She sometimes felt guilty overall, but she couldn’t chase away the shape of him in her head. 

As promised, eventually The Doctor came—alone this time. They sat in her dining room this time, across from each other. She would be completely sober that night and all night.

“Martha wanted to go home,” he said simply, with a sigh. “I can’t blame her. I really…I really messed it up this time, Eileen.”

She listened to him speak in half truths, hiding the majority of his story, as usual. At least he was speaking. 

Then he opened up.

“I’m the last of the Gallifreyans,” he had said, “or—at least, I thought. And the only other one left is just...so misguided.” He’d sighed, and ran his hands through his hair. “I kept thinking of you saying it was all unfair. How many are gone, while he keeps hurting everyone he can get his hands on.” Frustration laced his voice. 

She had agreed, simply but sincerely, and they spent the rest of the night revealing their truths the tiniest bit at a time. He’d told her more about Rose, but didn’t speak of Martha or the fall of his people any further. She took in as much as he would allow, without prying. Wounds take time to heal. 

Eileen told him about how she had strengthened and tuned her abilities; she could block it out now, as well as specifically tell where it was coming from (even in a crowd). He’d been proud of that, and of her promise that she’d tried her best not to be too nosey this past year. She asked him what he thought about it now, and he’d simply said she was special; he just didn’t know how yet. Same as before. 

She didn’t tell him about Simon. 

The Doctor asked about her job, and Eileen told him about improving testing scores twenty percent that year. He told her to make it sixty. He asked about her sister; she regretfully said they were growing apart, especially since college began. He told her she would come back. She almost believed him. She asked about his recent adventures. He just gave a sad smile, sighed, and looked away. She wished she could grab his hand. She asked him where his favorite place was, taking the hint. His smile lost the pain, and he said, honestly, 

“Earth.”

Later he had said, casually, “Martha asked me when we left why I didn’t just stay to figure it all out at once. Where’s the fun in that? Told her you were like a crossword I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish in one sitting.” She thought about it for days. 

For the rest of the night, they sat, talked, and just enjoyed each other’s company. Eileen savored every moment of it, like she always did. She watched his hands, his lips, his teeth, his tongue all dance as he spoke. His eyes held things she would never understand. She thought, honestly, that he was, perhaps, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. 

Finally, he gave that familiar sigh. 

“It’s time, Eileen.” She loved the way he said her name. Every year she wished more and more he could just...stay.

“I know,” she sighed, putting her head against her fisted hands. He looked across the table at her, eyes grazing over the lines of her face. 

Then he did something she would have never expected. 

He reached across the table, untangled her hands, and held one firmly in his own. 

She felt the sudden rush of regret and sorrow. He didn’t want to leave. It almost matched her own—almost. Behind it, there was deep worry and, again, that hollow loneliness. There was concern, hope, and the pain of missing someone when you can see them in your life every day and not pick up the phone to say hello. All because they simply couldn’t stay with you, but it’s good you’re not the first priority. It was a regrettable understanding. That part did match her own. She saw him think of her every time he heard Elvis and The Stones. Every time he was near the water at sunset. Every time he felt forgotten. Every time he felt remembered. Every time he found himself alone.

A moment later, he pulled back, but the tears already stung the corners of her eyes. She remembered that feeling she’d first gotten from him every once in a while, and could never fight the sorrow that followed it. To know what he carried with him, and to know it never left, was painful. She wasn’t crying because she knew he cared, she was crying because caring about anyone would never be enough for him. 

“Next year,” he said, bringing her eyes to meet his own. They were looking into her’s, eagerly trying to convey what he just did with touch. “I promise, old friend, I look forward to it. I do.” 

“Promise,” she agreed, not needing to say more. 

That night she went to bed, thinking of the pain he felt at leaving well into the night. She went to bed knowing, completely for one, that she had made a friend, not a reluctant watch guard. 

Her and Simon broke up the next day, for unspecified reasons on her part.

————*————*————

At twenty-three, in 1968, Eileen waited once again. 

He came. 

With him, he brought a lively and animated redheaded woman as his new traveling partner. Her name was Donna, and Eileen thought she just may have liked her best. 

Eileen carefully kept her boundaries this time, respecting The Doctor’s wishes to keep her words to herself—but her and Donna took a liking to each other over their mutual hobby of teasing him instead, which may have been debatably worse. The two had ganged up on him within the first twenty minutes of their meeting, and everyone was in fits of laughter by the turning of the half hour (but The Doctor’s not quite as genuine as the other two’s). 

This time, they sat in the living room again, with just a bit of beer for her and Donna throughout the night (also mostly for the sake of the old man). They played records and told stories, this time until they saw the prickling of light through the blinds. 

The Doctor and Donna spoke of their recent adventures; encountering creatures called The Ood, visiting Pompeii, meeting and Agatha Christie. Eileen was on the edge of her seat with every detail, enjoying how excited and invested Donna got when telling her tales. She found out the redheaded woman also stumbled on to The Doctor by mistake, but was able to find him again afterwards, and now here they were.

“Been happening a lot lately, hasn’t it,” The Doctor had mumbled, glancing at Eileen. 

She’d told him about her sister, who was going to be dropping out of school soon to get married in the spring. Both her and The Doctor were quite disappointed. Her soon to be brother in law had gotten a job offer at a law firm in New York City and Mary saw no point in finishing her own education when she wouldn’t have to work. Eileen had hoped she simply wanted to learn. They hadn’t gotten any closer this past year, in fact, she barely saw her sister at all anymore. Despite giving up almost four years of her life to provide for her, they hardly knew each other anymore. 

It hurt, and it hurt even more when The Doctor asked if she’d had anyone else there for her. She didn’t. She still had to work constantly to pay for Mary’s tuition, even though it wouldn’t even be completed—she didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t spend her evenings engaging her intellect anymore. Eileen was in a low place these days. She didn’t tell him this, though; only that she was still busy, and no, there was nobody else to share the burden. It was just her now. He didn’t say anything in response. Just frowned, and looked pointedly at the carpeting—like he was trying to figure out how to fix it all. They both knew he couldn’t.

Eileen looked to lighten the mood, and had asked Donna if she would ever get married, and thus heard more of the tale about the infamous night in the wedding dress (Donna had only said before that she had appeared in the TARDIS, not the circumstances of where she had appeared from). 

They talked, and laughed, and reflected until it was time for the two to move on. 

“Where will you go next?” Eileen had asked while they were fitting their shoes back onto their feet. 

“Dunno,” The Doctor said, glancing at Donna, before turning to Eileen. “Where will you go tomorrow?” 

She thought about it for a second. “I have the morning off. I think I’ll stop by the library for a little bit, and renew some books that are almost overdue.” 

The Doctor grinned. “The library. That’s a brilliant idea. What do you say, Donna? Fancy a trip to the library?” 

Donna rolled her eyes, snorting. “Great lot of fun you two are.” 

Before they left, he turned to her and said, again, simply, “See you next year, old friend.” 

Minutes later, Eileen was in her bed, listening to the sound of the TARDIS pulling in and out of existence, still with the rhythm to the aching beat in her chest. 

Eileen changed again that night. In no noticeable way, but she did nonetheless. She became the girl who was one visit away from being where she was meant to be. It didn’t feel like much at the time, no, but the fruits of her seventeen years of labor and were about to pay off. 

She just had to be patient with him. 

————*————*————

At twenty-four, in 1969, Eileen sat on her pier, dressed in the same cropped pants and pale sweater from one of his last visits. Her hair, still in the shag cut, was longer now, reaching just past her collarbone rather than her chin. That was the only difference in herself she could bring to approve of these days.

She hadn’t heard from her sister since the wedding. She’d been working nonstop for the past six months, needing money for not only herself, but her loans, her sister’s loans, the trip to NYC, the gift for the wedding, and the upcoming holidays. Things were hard, especially on a single twenty-four year old woman’s wages. 

Every day felt all more difficult, and the layers that grew over her old self had begun covering her bright sense of optimism with armor forged in divine betrayal. 

She had been looking forward to today for the past year. She had been looking forward to seeing her friend and remembering what it was like to feel like her old self again—the girl who looked forward to tomorrow. She hadn’t felt like that for a while. Not since the last time she saw him, actually. 

She waited, and waited, and waited. 

When the moon was high into the night, Eileen felt a heaviness in her limbs and her eyelids. But she couldn’t move—she had been doing some thinking. She wouldn’t budge, not until she saw him. It was the day he always came, and she knew he wouldn’t let her down. So she stayed, the importance of the question she held burning through her chest the whole night. 

She didn’t remember falling asleep.

Eileen rose to consciousness in complete darkness. Something was nudging her shoulder, and she quickly realized her eyes were closed. When a light breeze and the sound of birds emerged through her clouded senses, she snapped up with her eyes wide open. Now fully alert, she saw a looming shadow on her left side. Her head snapped in its direction, and there she saw him, for the first time against an early light, hands and eyebrows raised in defense. 

“Morning,” said The Doctor apologetically. “Sorry ‘bout that. Missed the coordinates a bit.” 

“You,” she started, rubbing at her eyes, “have a time machine.” That’s all she needed to say to get her point across. 

“Yeah, I do,” he smirked, softening his face at her morning vulnerability. She stopped sweeping the sleep away and opened her eyes to see he was crouching next to where she had fallen asleep. 

“Miss me?” He was smiling, but there was something behind it that was keeping him from really looking happy. 

“Always,” she responded, with no hesitation. They had become fond of each other over the years, no longer afraid to show that they cared (especially not after the night The Doctor took her hand). 

“Donna?” She knew this part was always touchy, but she always just wanted to know they were okay. Luckily, he recognized her right to know it as well.

He frowned regardless, sliding down into a sitting position over the edge of the dock next to her. For a minute, he didn’t say anything; just stared, as he always did, over the water and at the TARDIS. 

“I had to make her forget me,” The Doctor spoke up, finally. “She—She took a bit of my mind into hers, and it was too much—it was killing her. So I had to take it all out, or she’d have snapped in minutes. Seconds, maybe, I dunno.” He chewed his lip, brows creased together. “She said she wanted to travel with me forever, you know. And there was nothing stopping her. Nothing but me.” She saw his fists were clenched. 

Eileen didn’t say anything. “You saved her,” she spoke softly after a moment. “Unless you forced her to take a bit of your big ol’ brain, I’d say you’d saved her, Doctor.” 

He reflected on that for a second, but still spoke with regret. “She’ll never remember any of it. All the fun we had together, Eileen, it’s—everything she found out about herself, blimey, she was brilliant. One of my best mates, that one. When I left, I—I said good-bye to her, and I knew she wouldn’t care, but that, well, that hurt. She hardly looked at me.” As he finished his thought, he ran a hand through his already messy hair. 

Eileen smiled, gently, at the wood under her thighs. “You looked so mad at me in London,” she laughed quietly. “You made sure I knew I was messing up your whole thing. You were like a god to me, I found ghosts of you in history books, I think. Just hints and stories. A god. You changed my entire life. I could have been—shit, I don’t know. Worse than this. Then you popped in and made that time of my life something more than just my dead parents. You made me believe in magic. In reality, more so. You said my name, gave me a title and a purpose, then shooed me away. And after all that, I was the only one who saw you go. Never told a soul about you, not a single person. Nobody to let it all out too. I was so alone until you came back here.” 

She paused for a second, letting him process before she continued. “Donna remembers. You didn’t change who she was, you just made her forget you. The details of you. But the whole thing? You can’t take that away from someone, not even the mighty and powerful Doctor. You didn’t take it from me, and, no, I didn’t forget you, I just thought I was nothing to you. That’s kind of the same, right? Same ending, different plot? We both have to move on, she just doesn’t need to feel left behind. I bet she wakes up with the same hunger in her soul she had before. The same ‘no shit taking’ Donna. That, you can’t change. You’re not as big and bad as you think, and you know she wouldn’t have left, so it’s better she was taken without the pain.”

He didn’t face her, just kept watch of the TARDIS. “I suppose you’re right,” he breathed after a moment, “You know, I always come here when they leave. Because you couldn’t come with me, maybe. Also, to check on your weird brain thing, I guess. But you stayed here, and you were safe, and you remembered me. I hadn’t let you down yet.” Though he acknowledged her words, it didn’t seem to bring him much comfort from his guilt. His face, and mostly his voice, didn’t lesson in their own pain.

“We never had that moment, the one I have with the rest of them, where they—they look at me different one day. And I know that they see me for the way I really am, and that I deserve the fear in their eyes, really. I’ve done things, Eileen. I’ve done so many awful things. Donna begged for me to not make her forget, and I sat there and listened to it while I—,” he stopped abruptly, and she heard a light crack in his tone. His face creased with solemn and bitter regret. “And I could. Because I’ve gotten used to it.” 

She gave him his moment of lamentation, then spoke. 

“We did. Right here. The night Aunt Liza died. I looked at you and I knew every trip around the world and back took something out of you. I touched you, twice, and felt a million faces fade around me. I felt a hollow cavern of loneliness stretch through me farther than I knew was possible, I—. I felt the rage you have at every decision you’ve had to make. I’ve seen you, Doctor. I’m not afraid of you. Worse things have happened to me than dying and forgetting.” 

Finally, he turned to meet her eyes again. He had that same searching look, the one he gave her so often. He didn’t speak, so she continued, feeling her heart skip a beat as she considered how lonely she had been herself all these years. 

“How long have you been alone?” She asked, her hands starting to tremble the slightest bit. It was time. Here and now, finally. And she would be ready for it.

The Doctor hadn’t noticed that he had been turning slowly to face her more and more until his entire body was shifted in her direction by the time she’d asked her question. 

“Weeks,” he answered slowly and quietly, brows creeping together more and more, just like always. She never knew how he could still find the muscle for it.

“Mary hasn’t—she hasn’t spoken to me since she got married,” Eileen’s gaze quickly fell down to her hands, which were smoothing the wrinkles in her pants to keep from falling idle. 

“I—Listen, I’m so unhappy, Doctor, it’s just me, but none of my time is for myself anymore. I’ve,” she tumbled on her words, speaking too quickly, and stopped to take a breath, “I’ve been thinking. If you—if you don’t want to be alone anymore, then I don’t want to be here. I can’t be here, there’s no way. I’m trapped.” She met his eyes again, knowing she wouldn’t be able to keep the pleading look out of her own. 

His expression was one of critical and internal debate. He didn’t look as excited as she had hoped, and time began to slow around her.

“Eileen,” he finally sighed, messing his hair again, “Everyone gets hurt. All of them, and I don’t want that to happen to you.” 

She understood now. 

“So you can keep having someone remember how great you are.” There was no bitterness in her own tone, but now he was the one who could no longer meet her gaze. She went on, not caring how much the truth would hurt him anymore. 

“You offered this to me so long ago, you just said so yourself. You keep me here, like a low maintenance pet, and watch things get shittier and shittier while you get to come dazzle me with your, oh so, amazing stories. You get an audience every—Jesus, I don’t even know how long it is for you, but you get your audience, don’t you. Knock Your Socks Off Doctor, right? And I knew that, but I still loved it. Because I thought if I was ever ready, you would let me. Now I’m not just ready, I need this, I actually need it or I will be stuck. I will die here as nothing. Wasted. But you need your audience.” 

She knew using Martha’s words would sting, but so did this. His hands had balled into fists and Eileen considered the idea that maybe she had just ruined all of this for herself, visits included. 

If that was the price she paid for the truth, so be it. She wasn’t a pet.

Then he spoke. “So get your stuff.” The Doctor’s voice had traces of anger in it, and he still wouldn’t meet her gaze. 

“Go get your bloody things, and get in the TARDIS.” She looked at him, fear bubbling slowly up her chest. She didn’t know what to make of this reaction. For a second, she was frozen. He turned to meet her eyes then, his own throwing daggers straight into her, and she took a step back. 

“You want to stop being a ‘pet’,” he spat the last word, “Fine, risk your own life. Get your ‘shit’, as you’d say.” He turned away from her and back to The TARDIS.

With a dismissive, “before I change my mind and leave without you,” he was off. 

In that moment, seventeen years after the first crucial moment, Eileen finally became the person it had all been leading up to; she was the girl who, with patience and respect, had been fighting for what she wanted. 

She had gotten it. Here and now.

She blinked and, in what felt like less than a minute, had run into the house, grabbing whatever she could fit into her faded leather tote bag. Less than another minute after that, she was standing outside of the familiar blue doors, wondering faintly if she had picked up her toothbrush. 

Her heart was beating all the way to the inside of her throat. With a final deep breath of preparation, she pushed open the door. The air was pulled right from her lungs when she saw it. 

‘Bit more comfortable than it looks,’ he had said. 

The glow of the alien technology hit her face, which was stuck in an expression of awe and fascination. It was huge. She had seen the tiny blue box so many times but never felt like she really deserved a peek inside. Eileen was glad she waited—it was worth the shock. 

In the center stood a huge, curved, almost tube shaped console. There, leaning against it under the faint orange hue, was The Doctor. His face was much softer now, and he looked at her with amusement and no trace of apology. 

“Yeah,” he said, drawing out the word, “comfortable.” As if he pulled the thought right from her mind. And, frankly, maybe he had. 

Eileen broke into an excited smile and rushed inside, closing the door behind her. The noise coming from the machinery sounded like music. Like an old, forgotten symphony.

“It’s beautiful,” she sighed, spinning around as she walked to take in the full view. She noticed stairs under the grating holding up their elevated level, and several openings at various points around the vaguely circular room. “How big is this place?” 

“Oh, she can’t really ever seem to make up her mind about that one,” He said, sucking in a breath and resting a hand on the console. 

“She?” Eileen smiled, setting her bag against the iron railing. 

“She,” The Doctor grinned in confirmation, tongue pressed between his teeth and patting the console, “she’s got a mind of her own, this one. Love that about her.” He looked fondly up at the top of the ceiling. “So! Where to?” 

She let out one short laugh and blinked in surprise. Eileen hadn’t ever really thought this far. “Uh,” she said, biting her lip and pulling at the end of her sweater, “Somewhere with a shower? I did sleep outside last night.” 

The Doctor laughed and nodded in understanding. “Well,” he began, taking three steps in her direction, then stopping to cross his arms in a fake performance of deep thought, “There’s a dozen or so somewhere in here. Couple baths, steam room or two, all sorts of things. Or—,” he lowered his gaze at her, smirking, “—we could go to the five star spa facility on Venus in the year 5034.” 

Her face erupted with enthusiasm now. “Show me where to brush my teeth at least, then let’s go.” 

His face matched hers, not hiding how excited he was to have someone back by his side again. “Aye, aye, captain,” he joked, giving her a mock salute and starting down the hallway closest to him. 

“Doctor,” she called after him, grabbing her bag. He turned to face her, looking so much like he belonged in this insane little—or, big, actually—box.

“Thank you,” Eileen finished, closing the gap between them as he waited. 

He smiled and let out a breath of disbelief, shaking his head and making his hair bounce over his eyes a bit. “No, Eileen,” he said simply, holding out a (covered) arm to escort her, “Thank you. For reminding me.” She didn’t know what of (again), nor did she care as she looped her arm through his and let him guide her to a small room with an emerald tiling and a proper, twentieth century looking bathroom fixtures. 

“Plumbing,” she laughed, letting go and stepping inside, “Very nice.” 

He shrugged in casual agreement before leaving her be. 

When she was alone, she looked in the mirror and finally saw herself for who she had been stepping into. 

Behind the wavy, sun kissed brown hair that framed her freckled, heart shaped face. Behind the large and round hazel eyes sitting behind generous lashes. Behind the inward curve of her nose, the plush and pink lips, the soft hue of pink in her cheeks. Eileen looked in the mirror and saw beyond her appearance to see the girl who finally walked into the blue box.

The girl who fought, persisted, and learned from it all.

The girl The Doctor had been seeing the entire time. The girl who gave him a reason to keep coming back. That part, she would always be unaware of, but to see herself clearly was reward enough, wasn’t it?


	3. The Journey: Roots Take Hold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eileen and The Doctor start asking the necessary questions about her past and stumble on some unexpected answers.

The TARDIS traveled the way it landed; pulling back and forth between two points in existence until it finally reached the destination it wanted (and sometimes the one The Doctor wanted too). Eileen soon found out the point of the railing, not having expected such a rickety journey from such an advanced machine. Within two minutes after she emerged from the bathroom, they had departed and arrived—“Hopefully,” The Doctor had said—at the spa. Not once did he think to give her a bit of warning. When the ship had stilled and she had regained her composure, he turned to her with a wild gleam in his eye. 

“Well, go on,” The Doctor smirked, nodding to the door with his arms folded and his eyebrows raised in amusement. He looked smug, leaning back with all his time and space travel experience apparent on his face. “Love this bit, I do.” 

Eileen met his gaze with a brief, nervous smile. “I just walk outside?” She asked, not really phrasing it like a question, but more as a statement of disbelief. “No helmet? No suit? I just walk outside.” 

He rolled his eyes at her, causing his hair to flop over to the left side of his face. “Yes, yes,” he all but hissed, shooing her out the door, “Do it, do it, I want to see the big moment. This has been a long time coming, you know, now don’t ruin it with questions.” 

Eileen snorted but let him guide her, turning to walk out the door as his hands waved in her direction. She stopped just short of walking outside, standing in front of the doors of the TARDIS. Without looking at him, Eileen bit her bottom lip in a helpless smile.

“And no suit?” She called, still not facing his way. 

“Stop it,” he replied back in warning. 

So she did, and turned her full attention back to the task at hand; walking out onto Venus, in—oh, she didn’t even remember what year he had said. 5040, or something? Eileen didn’t stop to prepare herself this time. She just pushed open the doors, like he wanted her to.

There it was; Venus. 

She’d expected dusty red and brown sands (for some reason she couldn’t really place), but instead saw what couldn’t have possibly been cement. Except, it looked exactly like cement in every way, so what else could it have been? Funny what things manage to survive thousands of years. The sky, pleasantly different from Earth’s, was an array of different shades of purple—from a deep violet on the horizon, to a light lavender just overhead. The clouds were the same shade of burnt orange she had been expecting from the ground, and she smiled at seeing the color after all. 

“Artificial atmosphere,” The Doctor’s voice said from (closely) behind her, “Venus’ atmosphere is a different size than Earth’s which—“

“Changes the scale of light perceptions, making the red hues more prominent, and the clouds are probably orange from the wider distance of light travel, and maybe as well as a reflection from unchanged terrain, if Venus is anything like what I thought it would be,” Eileen interrupted him in a hasty mumble. She didn’t look away from the sight in front of her. She didn’t think she could even if she wanted to. It was the second most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Beings, both human in resemblance (but so was The Doctor, and human he was not), and otherwise, walked up and down the paths that lined the street (if that’s what they called it) they had landed on. 

“Yeah,” The Doctor hummed through a satisfied smile, “Exactly.” His gaze had shifted from the sky to her, but she didn’t notice. 

She nodded, waving a dismissive hand at him in a way that mocked how he urged her through the doors before. Eileen looked down at her feet as she took her first steps on Venus. Her first steps off Earth. Her first steps into the next phase of her life. And much to her amusement, she had the familiarity of good ol’ cement to make it feel like home.

“Here’s one you can’t finish,” he said, following behind her and shutting the door, “the TARDIS will support your whole journey here. Breathing, communicating, coming in handy other ways in a quick pinch—whatever it may be. Mostly. See that building to the left, just there?” As he spoke, he took a step in the place behind her, reaching his arm over her shoulder to point at the building he intended. “Read that for me.” 

Eileen had to swallow the pressure rising in her throat as she spoke. She forgot about who she was with for just a moment, and here he comes, demanding her full attention once more. He was a man of theatrics and applause before anything else, but could hide it under the dazzlement of his abilities and intelligence. Show off.

“Uh,” she began, eyes flitting down with intensity of his closeness, “Venusian Industry’s Health and Beauty Wellness Center. Wordy. You think that’s bad for business?” 

The Doctor stepped back and lowered his arm with another smug smile, not noticing the wave of relief that washed over her. “Perfect! She can read too. Right then, to a pampering we go.” He started off towards the building, his long strides causing her to lag behind a little. “How can it be bad for business when it gets the point across? Venusian Industries is pretty famous in their day. Luxury spas and pampering, that’s what they’re known for! Think two sad saps like us have earned a bit of a pampering, really. Bit of a spa day, a holiday for once,” he continued on, words getting lost in the weaving sounds of the sidewalk that grew between them as he powered ahead of her. 

As he closed the distance between himself and the front door, The Doctor seemed to notice Eileen wasn’t actually right behind him as he had suspected. Somewhere in all his ramblings, she had fell behind him, too far back to see. She caught a look of him frantically searching for her in the crowd between the other pedestrians as she worked her way through the mass of busy bodies. With visible relief, he saw shortly afterwards that he hadn’t entirely lost her. Eileen squeezed between two chatting sets of strangers to meet him with a look of irritation.

“Walk slower please, you have company now,” she scolded. 

The Doctor rolled his eyes, the movement causing the smallest bounce, once again, of the messy brown hair that fell over his glasses. “Walk faster, you have a tour guide. Missed a good bit of background information, you did. Actually quite rude.” 

She mimicked his eye rolling mockingly, but didn’t answer, only grabbing the tail of his suit jacket as she followed him through the doors. She didn’t stop to marvel at how they just glided open when they stepped towards them, for fear of somehow getting stuck outside. 

“Evening,” he said cheerily, approaching the single desk in the forefront of the otherwise unfurnished, crisp white room. Eileen looked up and down the empty space behind it, but no one there to speak to. Then, after she was just about to ask, a light appeared from a point in the wall behind the desk. A moment later, an almost see through apparition of what looked like a blank faced mannequin emerged from that small blue light. 

“Good evening,” said a robotic voice. The mannequin’s hologram didn’t have a mouth to speak, so the sound came from speakers overhead. “Please state your business request and I shall do my best to assist you!” 

“Brilliant,” The Doctor continued, unfazed, “Two for the full pampering please. The Platinum Standard, I think that’s what you lot call it, isn’t it?” 

“Certainly!” The voice replied, “Please insert required funds into the slot below.” 

At the front of the desk, again from seemingly nowhere, the clean white surface folded back for a space to put in what she assumed would be money. 

Instead, The Doctor pulled a small, cylindrical object from his pocket and pointed it at the opening. A smaller pitched version of the TARDIS’ whir came from the machine as it lit up with neon blue at the end, and suddenly she knew what that other noise was all those years ago. She raised an eyebrow at him in question as the slot closed itself. 

“Sonic screwdriver. It uh. Does things,” he shrugged, answering her unasked question, “It’s fine, really, don’t worry about it.” 

“Perfect!” The robot voice said and, like the slot had before, the white walls slide open to expose a hallway just beside the desk. Eileen snorted once more as they began their walk through the newly presented door. 

“Police Public Call Box,” she mumbled loudly to herself, smirking at his offended look in response. “Platinum Standard, huh? Sounds expensive. I noticed it’s not called a sonic wallet, is it? Shame on you, Doctor.” 

He couldn’t help but laugh as she lightly drove her elbow into his direction while she spoke. “Oh, and when did marijuana become legal in 1960s California? Those in glass houses, and all that.” As they moved down the hallway, they entered a considerably smaller unfinished, white room. “Right then,” he said, nodding as two doors slid open side by side on the opposite wall, “That’s for us.” 

Her stomach dropped with nerves at the thought of being seperated, but she didn’t show her fear. Eileen nodded, smiling hard, and glanced from The Doctor to the waiting entryways. “Which is me?” 

“I don’t really think it matters,” he shrugged, “Take your pick. First trip privilege, but they’ll both be the same.”

“Right,” she said, facing the doors fully now. She waited about one more second, then started off to the door closest to the left. “See you on the other side,” she smiled, looking over her shoulder to wave at him as the doors closed behind her. He nodded once to her, and she saw in his hardened gaze that he had picked up on her fear after all. 

Eileen, once inside, had all fear melt away when she saw her new setting. Instead of the impersonal and cold blank white walls, this room was a white brick, which somehow felt a little more comfortable to her. She supposed it was the texture that made it possess a slightly warmer personality than the others. In several spots sat plants that looked like Monsteras in terracotta pots—though, while several were the anticipated green, a few were a deep fuchsia, much to her enjoyment. In the corner of the room was a sunken bath, already filled with steaming water and what looked like slices of oranges and the flowers of vanilla. Next to the tub was a rack, supposedly for her clothes. 

“Good evening, valued guest,” said the same robotic voice from overhead as before, “please begin by removing any outside residue in your cleansing shower, which is sanitized between each visit, as it will be after your own. Your clothes and personal items may be placed on the available hanging station next to the infused tub. Please step into shower to continue your wellness experience.” 

Eileen raised her eyebrows and did as instructed, feeling goose flesh rise against a chill as she stripped and hung her clothes where she’d been directed. She presumed the room had a system that recognized the weight change on the bars, because once her clothes were on the rack, a door slid open behind it to reveal an already flowing shower of the same white brick. She stepped inside and under the perfectly warmed water, no longer feeling the harsh cold air of the room. 

“Your water has been infused with a soap mixture that will automatically remove any unwanted bacteria and filth from your person. A minimum of thirty seconds is required, but you are welcome to enjoy your shower for a maximum of five minutes. We appreciate your respect of our water conservation and remind you a pleasant bath awaits you after. Your minimum time for sanitation has now ended, and another four minutes and thirty seconds remain for your enjoyment.” 

Eileen smiled at the efficiency, and only stayed long enough to push her fingers through her hair and run her hands over her face. When she took a step back, the water stopped, and the voice returned. 

“Thank you for conserving our water! Customers who sanitize in under a minute will receive a complimentary Hershey’s Brand Chocolate Orb as a token of our appreciation upon check out.” At that, Eileen let a laugh escape her. Like the cement, she felt a small rush of joy to see something familiar to her so far from home.

“After your bath,” the voice continued, “Which has been infused with glass oranges and vanilla from our pesticide free sources on the Martian Farming Belt, please step out of the tub to unlock your next experience. The doors will open to expose a small dressing room, where one of our complimentary robes will be hanging for your use. Before entering, gather your personal clothes and belongings. Place your clothes in the red box for a steam treatment, and your belongings in the blue to be collected upon check out. Thank you for choosing Venusian Industries and please, relax and enjoy.” 

As the voice spoke, she had stepped and sunk into her much needed bath. It smelled delicious, more of a citrus type sharpness to it than regular orange. She wondered what a glass orange was, how long it took to create, and whether or not it was done on purpose. Eileen melted into the warm waters, letting her thoughts melt with her. 

She was in a spa resort on Venus. 

This morning she was in debt and hopeless, and now she was in a bath of glass oranges on a Venusian spa resort. She smiled again to herself, thankful to be losing track of the time that passed. Her mind wandered from Mary, to The Doctor, to her fellow faculty members, to her future, to her past, and back again. After a while, she felt the pressure of water between the pruning of her fingers and knew her time was up. 

Eileen stood and stepped onto the brick, where everything progressed as it had been promised, with the doorway sliding open at the trigger of her weight on the ground. The dressing room was small, just another hallway about four feet long, with one white robe (with matching slippers) hanging between two red and blue built-in slots in the wall. She gathered her clothes, placing them in the red box, and her only shoes into the blue one. After she took the robe off the hook and wrapped herself in it, the voice came again. 

“Thank you! Once you're dressed to your comfort level, please step towards the wall on your right. The doors will open to the massage room, booked for you and your arrival party. Your party is taking their experience at their own time, and it is not guaranteed you will progress at the same speed. Should you conclude early, an entertainment room will be opened to your use. Once inside the next room, simply lay face down on the massage table and our programmed drones will scan your body to assist the Venusian Helper Bots in personalizing your physical rejuvenation. To by-pass this experience, press the blue button inside, and you will be directed to the beautification experience.” 

Eileen stepped towards the right wall, and the doors slid open, yet again. She craned her neck as she walked inside, curious if she would see a familiar figure robed and waiting for her to join him. Much to her disappointment, she did not. The room was only slightly bigger than the first two, holding only two face down massage tables and two more of the fuchsia Monsteras. Like the voice had said, there was a large blue button on the back wall behind the chairs that she had absolutely no intention to press. 

She wondered if The Doctor had gone for that option, while she took her place laying face down on the left table. He did value his boundaries, and the practice of massage seemed a little far past those boundaries. A moment later, she heard a faint humming noise, and saw the shadow of two small orbs floating above her. She felt a faint tingle as a wave of blue light lit her up and down, and a second later, they were gone. Eileen had the time to take three more breaths before she saw the bottom half of two white robotic figures approach on either side of her. 

“Please do not be alarmed,” the voice chimed from the speakers, “These are your assigned Venusian Helpers. Your massage will now commence. To end the massage before the allotted hour, simply say ‘stop’. If you are capable of audible speaking, please let us know by doing so now, otherwise we will present other options for you.” 

Eileen lifted her head up momentarily and lazily. “Capable enough,” she said, before plopping back down with anticipation. 

“Thank you! Relax and ease into comfort and care.” 

As the robotic masseuses began working their pressure up and down various points in her back and shoulders, she did exactly that. Eileen faded into the feeling of her easing muscles, allowing the stress to be coaxed out of her bit by bit. She let out a hum of contentment and pleasure as one of the robots glided down the tension in her legs. 

She heard a cough in response coming from the area she had walked through just minutes before. Eileen’s gaze flickered upwards to see the bottom half of what she assumed to be The Doctor. Chicken legs, unkept and unmistakably a man’s, beneath a fluffy, white robe that matched her own.

“Is that you?” She asked, not bothering to pick her head up, or really needing the confirmation. 

“Erm...yes. Hello.” His voice sounded a bit distracted, almost strained at the edges of it. 

“What’s wrong now?” She said, lazily, obliviously, and entirely blissful. 

“Nothing,” he said quickly, working himself onto his own chair, “Nothing at all, why would you ask?” 

She frowned, glancing to his place at her left briefly. “Okay? No reason. Have a nice bath?” 

She heard him inhale a brief laugh as his only response while he fixed himself the right way in the chair. Like they had done to her before, the robots came to work him into ease after they received their information from the drones. 

“Didn’t think you’d do this part,” she mused, the ‘didn’t’ hitching into a faint gasp as the robot pressed into her stiff lower neck. 

“Why’s that?” He hummed, voice lowering in his own tension relief. 

“Seems a bit personal,” Eileen observed. 

It was a little intimate for a first trip, and she couldn’t help but be thrilled at that. Like a couple’s massage. Even if it made her a bit giddy, it made her feel equally as silly, so she kept it private. 

“You, The King of Boundaries and Personal Space getting a massage. It’s kinda funny.” 

“It is,” he breathed into relaxation, “And so very necessary. Can’t remember the last time I’ve had a good patting down.” 

“Me neither,” Eileen hummed, flipping her head over to actually see in his direction. “So. What’s a glass orange?” 

To her surprise, he already had his head turned to face her. Squished between the pressure of gravity and the table, they could really only see the upper half of one another’s head, and contorted at that. But still, they looked. 

“Agricultural evolution of the orange, and just one of the firsts actually. They’re basically like regular oranges and regular limes made another, more citrus embodying love child. Before they’re ripe, they’re that pale green in the middle like limes, and against the orange rind—well, glass oranges, see? Looks clear, almost. Brilliant little things, they are. Delicious when they’re not bath water.” 

“Wow,” she smiled, closing her eyes once again, “Would you get a load of that. Almost 3000 years and we can eat some new fruit.” 

“Get a load of that indeed,” he hummed again, the smile apparent in his tone. “How’s Venus, Eileen?” 

At his question, she opened her exposed eye once more, seeing that he had moved up to rest his head onto his now folded arms. He was looking at her intently, eyes fixed carefully on what he could see of her face. 

“Venus is good, Doctor. Venus is exactly what I needed. How much more Venus is there?” 

“Oh, I dunno, steamed baths, massage, I think there’s some facials and other grooming rituals lined up next. Why? Ready to leave?” 

She glanced at him again, before closing her eyes once more and smiling. “Despite what you want to happen, I’m having a lovely time.”

“I didn’t—,” he began before cutting off. “Good. That’s good. Just say the word if that stops.” 

“But of course,” she grinned, folding her own arms to set her head on, eyes still shut with comfort. “Speaking of which, I’m a little done with this whole part, myself. Kinda starts to get sore after the fourth run down. Hey, robot Venus guy thing, can you stop?” 

“Did Party One ask us to stop?” The robotic voice came in from nowhere. 

“Party One did, yes, good job, robots,” Eileen said, while she shifted into a sitting position once the droids froze mid motion and moved back a foot from the table. She was very careful to keep her robe pulled together and over her kneecaps. Just to be safe. 

“Thank you!” The voice chimed, “To continue your experience, please walk through the available door and into the Beautician’s Suite, where our expertly programmed vanities will care for your personalized aesthetic and wellness needs.” 

“Staying here?” She asked him as she hopped down and began her tread backwards towards the door that had slid open on the wall holding the blue button. 

“For a bit longer, yeah,” he grinned and nodded, obviously enjoying his time. “Got a few hundred years of stress in these shoulders, you know.” 

She snorted, turning around fully now. “Poor old man. We’ll get you a walker, maybe that’ll make it easier.” 

As the doors closed, she heard him start to protest with a “Hey—,” but was cut off by the hiss of the automatic boundaries between them. The next room held only two white leather chairs in front of a mirrored wall. 

“Please sit,” the voice guided. And so she did. The chair turned itself to face the mirror and on the reflection, neon blue lights began to scan her face. 

‘SKIN HYDRATION: 39% DEFICIENT,’ the screen typed out in front of her. ‘TREATMENT: SNAIL MUCIN FROM ETHICALLY SOURCED JUPITERIAN SEA SNAILS. EXFOLIATION LIQUID REQUIRED. COLLAGEN MIXTURE SOURCED FROM VENUSIAN DRIFT FERNS WILL BE ADDED. HAIR DETECTED. STEAM TREATMENT WITH KERATIN ADDED. NAILS DETECTED. MANICURE AND PEDICURE ADDED. TEETH DETECTED. ORAL CARE MOUTHWASH MIXTURE WILL BE INCLUDED. CONTAINS MINT FROM PESTICIDE FREE EARTH SOURCES. NO ALLERGIES DETECTED. COMMENCING PROCESS...’ 

Eileen watched the text appear before her with her eyebrows raised. This was not the beauty parlor treatment she was used to, even in California. 

“Please keep your eyes closed while undergoing beautification treatment to avoid unwanted liquids or steams. Thank you, and enjoy.” 

The chair leaned back, and Eileen did what she was told, feeling the application of chilled liquid on her face, and the gentle rise of steam on the back of her neck. The ‘treatment’ continued, slowly, which she appreciated, especially when instructed to rinse her mouth with some incredibly minty mouthwash. Better to be allowed to ease into it all than have it slapped on with no regard. She was worried alien comfort would have been impersonal and cold, but this was more consideration than she had ever gotten from humans in her own time as a consumer in the 60’s. 

She was by herself for the duration of it, finishing her grooming component to their pampering alone. Her nails, tidied and trimmed; her teeth, violently fresh; her hair, steamed and brushed; her face, treated and dried; her person, completely and utterly tended to. 

“Your experience is now complete. Total duration time: one hour and fourteen minutes. We hope it was worth your time. Through the door—,” and against the right wall, another slid open, “—you will find the final dressing room with Party One’s clothes and personal belongings. Please step to face the right wall and await Party Two in the entertainment room, where we have WiFi, a copy of every television show recorded, and a console with the past two decades of games and music on file. Thank you, and have a pleasant time until we may see you next.”

Eileen recognized ‘television’ and prayed that they meant their claim of ‘every program ever’. She dressed when the dressing room’s doors were fully shut behind her, noticing her clothes (still the cream sweater and cropped black pants from before) were still a bit warm from whatever journey they had been through themselves. 

In the entertainment room, she found an array of couches and screens. She picked the long one in the center, directly in front of what she assumed was a television (but it was unlike any one she had ever seen, being at least four feet wide and inside of the wall itself). More text appeared on the screen in front her chosen seat.

‘State your desired program,’ it read politely. 

“Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In?” She stated, more like a question. Three dots appeared on the screen, before the two familiar host’s faces began their show, larger than she had ever seen it played. On Venus, over 3000 years in the future. She smiled, both at the jokes and the turn her life had taken in the past hour and a half. Suddenly, a small box rose up from the table next to her. The lid slid off, to reveal a wrapped circular object with the Hershey’s logo across it. 

“Ha!” She laughed, picking it up and unwrapping it in a hurry. Hershey’s and Laugh In. It’s like she was back home. The chocolate was just as she knew it to be, only with a liquid center of a richer, darker flavor. How long did it take Hershey’s to make truffles, she wondered. 

Eileen sat, sprawled out comfortably on the couch for two more episodes before she heard the hissing of the sliding door behind her. She picked her head up and looked over the back of the couch to see The Doctor walking in, rubbing the back of his neck with an embarrassed expression. 

“Someone—and I’m not saying it was me, but someone—fell asleep during the massage and woke up about three minutes, twenty seven seconds ago. Now, whoever that per—is that Cher?” He interrupted himself, brows pushing together as he noticed the large images flashing across the screen. 

“Oh, yes,” She said, shifting herself back towards the program and putting her feet on the floor and off the couch in one quick motion. She patted her hand on the empty space next to her. “Sit. Enjoy.” 

The Doctor huffed out a laugh and took her up on the offer, plopping himself down with no inhibition. “I thought you’d be at least a little worried, but no, you’re here with the telly,” he rolled his eyes, placing his arms along the back of the couch and his feet up on the crisp white table before them. 

She shrugged, watching as the party skit played out on screen. She liked this one for its accuracy; the camera just zoomed in on different people at a party who stopped to say ridiculously stupid (yet sometimes incredibly thought provoking) things—like ‘My husband believes in the two party system, as long as both of them are at my place ’. That’s why she liked parties. They were already like a peek into the human psyche, and with her abilities, she had the front row seats. Though, certainly not through a television.

“Are you saying you wouldn’t have been fine?” She asked, not really giving him her complete attention yet. 

“Well. No, I’m always fine,” he smiled. “So what are we watching? I see Goldie Hawn, Cher—Flip Wilson? Is this Martin and Rowan? They have Martin and Rowan on Venus?” 

She grinned, finally turning back to him now. “First off, it’s Rowan and Martin, get it right if you’re gonna get it. Second, they gave me a Hershey’s! Wild, man.” Eileen shook head at the surreal nature of her first trip through time and space.

“Why’d you get a Hershey’s?” The Doctor frowned, quickly trading it for a smile at Tiny Tim’s ukulele performance. 

“‘Cuz I’m not a greedy shower taker. Under one minute, they give you candy. How long was your’s? The full five?” Eileen laughed, poking his rib cage at his indignant face. 

“Maybe,” he admitted, pulling his feet off the table. “Should we get out of here?” He rose to a standing position, stretching his arms out in front of him. 

She joined him, both in standing and stretching. “Sure. Where to now?” 

“Well,” he began, sucking in air through his teeth and nodding just the slightest bit at his own thoughts, “We could have a pop down to the open stall markets if you want. Pick us up some nibbles and see the sights.” 

“Some nibbles,” Eileen echoed, amusement obvious in her voice, “What kind of nibbles are available in 51st century Venusian times? Hershey’s? Wonder bread? Howard Johnson’s with glass orange sherbet?” 

He laughed at her joke, offering an elbow for her to take as they walked out, like he had in the TARDIS. She slipped her arm through, distinctly noticing how she no longer felt like she was following him, but now walking side by side. Her confidence now fully took the place of the shock that had subsided since their arrival. 

“You know, you’re really not that far off the mark,” he mused as they made their way out of the facility and to the first room with only the desk. “Nothing ever really changes. And if they do, it takes more like a billion years than a thousand, at least for you lot. Humans, dragging themselves across every which way in the galaxy. You started this colony, you know. 2956, the first human civilization on Venus. Then you spread like weeds, like you always do, bless you. Never for the life of you would you give up on your silly little comforts. Restaurants, cinemas, dating apps, smart phones—throughout all your history, once those are introduced—,” he made a popping sound with his lips, “— well, that's it, innit? They’re there to stay.” 

She shook her head, smiling nonetheless at his nonsense. “I don’t know what half those words mean, and honestly? I don’t really care.” They were back outside now, not even two hours later. The sun’s light hadn’t shifted at all. Eileen knew, smugly, it was probably due, not only, to the longer rotation of the planet, but the distance away from the primary luminary. The sidewalks were lined with trees that looked eerily like baby oaks, and all the shops really just looked new, not different. None of this was as alien as she had expected it to be, so maybe he had a point. 

“God, I forget what it’s like traveling with the ones from the 60’s,” The Doctor grinned. “You don’t even know just how similar it is, but it doesn’t matter because you still see it for the basic; human. Everything was new in the 60’s, why shouldn’t it be new now? Especially the Americans.” 

“Is speaking in riddles more of an off Earth habit for you, or do you just save it for when you feel like showing off?” 

“Showing off, mostly,” he smirked, pulling her towards his left. “Come on, they’re giving holographic tattoos. I think you’d like this, flower child, let’s go look.” 

Eileen let him drag her off towards a part of the street that was dedicated to outdoor stalls rather than luxurious looking indoor businesses. She assumed this was the open market he had been referring to, but instead of exotic and strange, it was more like the Thursday evening flea market in San Francisco. 

A crowd was gathering around one of the first booths in the line up, where everyone peered over one another to catch a better view of the tattoo artist’s (Eileen assumed) work. The Doctor pushed lightly with his free elbow to make their way through the crowd, only catching one disgruntled look from another spectator. 

Eileen had sat in on quite a few tattoo sessions in her time, but none with machinery as high tech as this. The gun the artist was using had two cylindrical silver canisters that held iridescent liquids of red and blue. Instead of tattooing in one line, they did two at a time with each needle on the end of the two silver dispensary components. 

“Watch this bit,” The Doctor mumbled and nodded forward as the artist did the familiar action of cleansing and wiping the excess ink from the skin. 

The client—a feminine appearing cat humanoid who was tattooing the exposed flesh from some sort of scarring—pulled their leg back and gave it a quick turn to the left and right. Eileen could see the art clearly now that the artist wasn’t crouched over it. As the leg turned left, it was a small cat on fire; to the right, drops of water fell and extinguished the flames. 

“HA!” The Cat laughed, “Now people can stop asking what happened.” The client stood and shook the artist’s (a reptilian person, rather than feline) hand, pulling out three crisp purple bills from their coat pocket. “Keep the change, Whack, I heavy appreciate it. Killer and clean, as usual, liz man.” The cat grinned and slid the bills into the lizard’s hand like Eileen saw the dealers on the beach do night after night (with a smooth, gliding handshake). She smiled at the familiarity of the people around her, alien or not. She loved the unconventional, and the unconventional still loved tattoos, it seemed.

“‘Prieciate you, Krenta,” the lizard nodded, pocketing the bills before facing his crowd. “One more before lunch?” 

Eileen whirled her head around to ask the question with her eyes that her mouth couldn’t form yet. 

“No,” The Doctor said, before even having to look at her. “No bills, remember?” She frowned and turned back to the spectacle, no longer as interested as before. 

“Cute,” she said, pulling him back to the street of stalls, “But I’ve seen plenty of people get tattoos, so if I can’t get a holographic one, I’d rather not stay and be bitter.” 

He snorted and rolled his eyes, now letting her do the dragging as they went off towards what looked and smelled like Takoyaki. Aromatic steam rose up from behind another booth in the line up, and Eileen felt the hunger set in her belly as she made her way to the source of the delicious fried smell. 

“How are we getting nibbles if you have no money, then?” She asked, glancing back at the man trailing only a step behind her. 

The Doctor didn’t reply, but only briefly glanced down at her and shot a smirk and a wink. As they got in the proximity of the stall, he stepped in front of her and took the lead, slipping his elbow out of her grip. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out what looked like a folded wallet, yet when Eileen caught a glance at the inside, she saw it only held a blank white sheet of paper. 

“‘Scuze me,” he called, doing his best to look authoritative while holding up the bifold wallet, “Inspection time. I’ll need two plates of your best nibbles, for proper, er. Inspecting purposes.” 

The chef, an elderly human appearing man, behind the dual counter and grill pulled a frightened expression. “Right away, sir, of course, sir,” he nodded fiercely bearing a thick London accent, and pulling two disposable plates out he began lining them with a generous portion of fried delicacies and steamed rice. “And how has the Health Department been faring these days, sir, with the new Head of Inspection taking office?” 

The Doctor pretended to think for a moment, pocketing the odd paper. “Well, they’re not like the old Head Inspector, I should say, but they are certainly a new one.” 

The chef grinned, obviously not really listening to him. “And right you are, sir, here you go, sir, please enjoy, sir.” He placed two plates, full of nibbles onto the counter, which The Doctor gladly accepted with both hands. 

“Thank you very much, on behalf of both myself and the Department of Health,” he grinned cheekily, taking the plates and provided forks, before leading their way to one of the open chrome picnic tables that sat just behind the small line up of food stalls in the marketplace.

The girl and The Doctor slid onto the opposite facing seats in the booth, each with their own food supply in front of them. 

“Looks like Takoyaki, smells like Takoyaki, but the question is—,” Eileen started before he interrupted her. 

“Is it Takoyaki?” The Doctor finished, picking up the three fried (suspected) octopus rounds speared along the kabob stick. “Octopi, and most related species, don’t evolve into their next genetic tier until—oh, I dunno. Another thousand years or so? It’s quite possible it is just Takoyaki. I could chec—and you’ve already eaten two of them, okay, well, never mind on the checking, then.” 

Eileen ran her thumb over the corners of her mouth, chasing the crumbs away, and smiled as he looked back up at her while he finished his sentence. “Famished. Tastes like Takoyaki, too.” 

He smiled, nodding, and started on a fried round of his own, nodding in enthusiasm to see that she was right. “Right it does.” 

They munched happily for another moment or two before Eileen, finishing a bite, spoke up again. “So. What’s with the fancy no money wallet and how come it couldn’t get me a tattoo?” She brushed her hands off over the pale grass under the table. 

“Ah,” he smiled, reaching into his pocket to pull out the bifold again. Once it was in the open, he flipped it to expose it was, in fact, just a blank sheet of paper. “Psychic paper. Tells them whatever they need to hear. One of the TARDIS perks. I don’t really know what the tattoo artist would have wanted to see, but I don’t think an inspection would have done the trick. What’s it say for you then?” 

Eileen frowned and glanced between him and the paper. “Nothing. Is it supposed to?” 

The Doctor gave her a vaguely surprised look before carefully tucking the handy little tool away. “Blimey, you really are like Shakespeare, aren’t you? Didn’t work on him either.” 

“I mean,” she began, picking off the last of her meal, “Wouldn’t it not work anyways, because of the telepathy thing?” 

“Right,” he frowned, pushing his own plate away, “No, that doesn’t usually affect it. The paper’s outsmarting whoever reads it, and in order for it to work, the reader needs to be able to be fooled. And some people can’t.” He stared hard at her now, brows furrowed and arms folded over the table, not bothering to hide his critical intrigue. She had grown used to defying his expectations. “And some people are just Time Lord—or general alien, maybe—magnets, telepaths, and apparent geniuses with absolutely no trace of anything suspicious happening around them,” he finished.

“What’s a Time Lord?” She asked between bites of perfectly warm steamed rice. 

“I’m a Time Lord. That’s what my people are called. Gallifrey is the planet, Time Lords are the race,” he answered simply, shifting his attention slightly back towards his own disregarded plate. 

“I see,” she hummed, dropping her fork and dusting off her hands. “And it’s unusual for me to be a Time Lord or general alien magnetic with telepathic abilities that is absolutely, yes, a genius?” While her question was serious, she asked it with humor and a smile. 

“I’d have to say so, yeah,” he replied, replacing his stern look of intrigue for a smile at her casualness. “I’ve run into a couple people by mistake before—Donna, for example—and most of them, well, turn out to be very important later on.” He stopped for a moment, glancing up at her from the small bit of rice left on his own plate. “That’s why I didn’t want to take you with me, sort of.” 

She kept her gaze on him, raising one eyebrow in return. “And here I thought you just wanted to keep me for yourself.” 

He set his own fork down again and pushed the plate to the side fully. “I did. People that are important to me don’t usually have happy endings, Eileen. They have things—coincidences—that don’t make sense about them. And when you find out why, it’s never for any pleasant reason.” 

She laughed, crossing her arms and giving him a disbelieving look. “Why do you keep setting me up to crash and burn with you? You look at me like I’m some kind of enigma, when the only thing I’ve ever noticed out of the ordinary is a little light mind reading and you.”

“Well, that’s exactly it, isn’t it?” The Doctor’s voice and gaze was more earnest now, and he leaned forward as he spoke. “The first time I met you was the night before your parent’s funeral. There shouldn’t have been any mistake on my end, but there was. I didn’t put in a date, I set the landing point to be when the Solarious had reached a certain population. I shouldn’t have landed there, but I did. You said that was important to you, that it changed your life. How?” 

Eileen sighed, giving into his interrogation. “Before you showed up, I told myself they weren’t real and I was, you know, seven, so that was a bummer. Then, at some point later, one touched me, and I realized they were, in fact, real. Then you showed up, and then the both of you were gone. It was special because I felt like I made you both show up, like I had made the magic I thought was gone come back. But I didn’t because both of you existed well beyond my control, which I learned next time.” 

He nodded, listening intently. “Next time, the time we really met, what then?” 

“You explained it all to me, and it went from me making you all real to me feeling like I got to see something and someone really special.” She hadn’t thought about the earlier days of their encounters in a long time. She couldn’t remember all the details anymore, but she could at least remember the way they felt. 

“And the third time, in London? Tell me more about what happened then.” 

Eileen reflected for a moment, turning her gaze to watch the people walk briskly by them, unaware of their audience of one. 

“Well,” she began, “We were about to go to the airport, and like I told you before, I saw one blue box so I just took the chance. I caught you right before you were about to go inside, and you didn’t recognize me. It hurt my feelings, then you left. That’s it really. How old were you then, by the way?” 

“Oh, I dunno,” The Doctor said in a breath, “400-something? That was my first face, mind you. I was a much younger, meaner man back then. How did it hurt your feelings? Everything could be important, Eileen, don’t skip the details, please.” 

She chewed her lip, taking her thoughts back to that night while her eyes followed a six foot bird walking down the line of food vendors. “I think it hurt till I thought about it. Then I assumed you had gotten older, and why would you remember me? I figured you must meet so many people, I shouldn’t have been surprised. So I told myself it was okay, and I wasn’t any less lucky, and then it didn’t really bother me too much.” 

He nodded again. “And the next time we met, with—with Rose—,” she caught the small hitch in his words but let it go, “—what happened then? What were you thinking of before I came?” 

Her brows creased together as she thought back, again, to six years ago when he showed up unexpectedly. “I—you. I was thinking about London when I heard the TARDIS. I was going off to college soon, and I was sitting and thinking about the house, and then I thought of you, then London, and—well, you were there for the rest.” 

“You were going to leave, and you thought about being left. Then there I was. And again, I shouldn’t have been. I put a sample of the Regone—the oil guys—into the TARDIS mapping system. And she took me to you. To see you before you left and tell you I didn’t forget you.” She turned back to face him and saw his gaze had shifted back into the critical expression it seemed to love being in. 

Eileen had never thought about it like that, and her stomach tightened. “The next time I saw you was the night Liza died. You came back on purpose, that time.” 

He nodded, not breaking his eye contact with her. “And I just so happened to pick that night. The night you could no longer go with me. The night we found your, ah, hidden talent, so to speak.” 

Eileen, now just as equally intent as The Doctor, nodded back. “And that made you keep coming back.” She briefly wondered if he would have returned at all, had he not found that out. But she didn’t like the extra weight that put on her nerves, so she cast the question aside. 

“Well, it gave me a deadline, at least,” he shrugged, which made her wonder something else now. 

“Can you hear my thoughts?” Eileen asked suddenly, flushing a bit at the flashbacks of her private indulgences she had allowed herself in the past. 

He blinked, his already slim face stretching out further in surprise. 

“Well,” The Doctor began, finally looking away from her, “Sort of. Telepathic species—especially ones with abilities as advanced as a Time Lord’s—can sort of pick up on everyone’s thoughts, as you know. But, erm, when those thoughts are from a mutual telepath—especially, er, one who hasn’t had the chance to work on their defenses—well. Yes. I mean, I have my own defense’s to keep from accidentally prying into everyone’s brain, but when someone is able to break that barrier for you, and they’re, ah, as loud as you are, it’s a bit harder to keep out.” 

Eileen, ever the graceful one, went beet red in realization as the rest of the world continued on, oblivious to hers coming to a screeching halt around her. “So—,“

“Yes, but I hadn’t realized they were your actual thoughts, I just thought I had a suspicion, and when I did realize they were thoughts I strengthen the mental walls, so to speak, and it seems to have been reduced to nothing more than a vague feeling that isn’t mine ever since.”

She swallowed, staring hard at the table between them. She felt like if she kept her eyes fixed on that one point, maybe—just maybe—she could keep from imploding on the spot. “Right. Cool. Great. Very cool, very cool.”

The Doctor coughed lightly, and the two still couldn’t look at each other. “It’s fine, really. Don’t worry about it—I mean, I certainly can’t blame you, can I?”

She latched on to the humor as an escape from the awkward tension.“No, I’ve met your other friends, you can’t. Except Donna, of course, she could very well blame someone.” 

He, gratefully, didn’t seem to hurt as much as before when talking about his last companion. “That, she could, bless her.” 

“Speaking of which,” Eileen said, raising her eyes to meet him with her own narrowed ones, “Awful lot of ladies, huh?” She was smirking with one corner of her mouth, eager to shift the attention from her own embarrassment. 

He threw his hands and brows up in defense, shaking his head. “Listen, I can’t help who comes on the ship, can I? Besides there was Mickey, Jack...actually, that’s about it, as far as this face goes.” 

“Jezebel,” she chuckled, resting her head on her raised fists. 

“Oi,” he said, voice raised high in indignation, “I’ll have you know I’ve been a perfect gentleman with all my companions.” 

She smirked at him once again, standing and grabbing her empty plate. “Well, for now. Come on, let’s go do something else.” 

The Doctor, huffing indistinguishable words of protest, stood and grabbed his own trash before following her in a brisk walk. They dumped their garbage into the nearest bin and walked—-no longer touching, Eileen noticed—back up the street of the open market. 

“Where to now?” She asked, moving left and right to avoid bumping into the crowd. She couldn’t hear any of them in her own head, but an accidental brush of skin on the street would push anything she kept out into her mind at full speed (and she’d rather be herself right now, thank you). 

He walked in long strides, with his hands in his pockets, looking as if he had all the time in the world. Though, she considered, he actually did. “Fancy a trip to the art museum? Just a block away, I think, and very free.” 

“Ooh,” she nodded, suddenly fierce with curiosity, “Lead the way.” 

So he did. The two walked, in content silence, to the large glass building on the opposite side of the street from the Wellness Center. When they were back in the area, and she was more aware of their environment, she noticed that the street was actually part of a large plaza square. All the shops that lined the area were beauty and arts related, and she wondered if the humans who made the Venusian colony had done so with the Venusian Roman ideologies in mind (if so, she decided she could do without seeing Mars). 

The glass building in question was several stories high, gleaming against the light that had shifted just the slightest bit in their three hours on the planet. ‘VENUSIAN ARTS MUSEUM,’ the large white text read high above the—also automatic—glass sliding doors. 

The two made their way inside, with The Doctor chirping art facts from the three centuries she’d missed since her time. 

In the building, she noticed the glass was tinted, almost completely black on the interior. Small, circular lights hung overhead every two feet, illuminating, but not distracting, from the pieces that hung around the four walls. Right by the front door, there was a small clear box labeled ‘DONATIONS’ full of different colored bills, and a red velvet rope to guide you into the main viewing area. Several people dressed in stark grey uniforms reading ‘SECURITY’ wandered throughout the gallery. In the middle of the room was a large, curved staircase that led to the upstairs. 

He now held his elbow out to her once again, and she took it with gratitude. The Doctor led her to the right, where the first painting was hung; Skeleton Smoking a Cigarette by Van Gogh. She’d seen it countless times in print, but this was the first time in person. She noticed the colors had faded a bit from the hues she knew it to be, now having a background of a deep grey than a stark black. The skeleton, once a deeper tannish yellow, was a faint memory of cream bones. 

“I like this one,” she said simply as they stopped in front of the piece, “and I like that it looks so much older, especially. Three centuries, but he’s still here.” 

“And will be for another three,” The Doctor nodded, “But you do lose things over the years. Eventually they start to think Da Vinci was Van Gogh and Van Gogh was Keith Haring.” 

“Who?” Eileen asked, looking from the painting to him. He met her with another smug look, and turned to scan the gallery. 

“Ah!” He exclaimed, finding what he’d been searching for. Across the gallery, another painting hung; this one a vibrant array of primary colors depicting several dancing figures with no distinguishable features. It reminded her of the modern art of her time, but she knew it had to be from after her generation. 

“Keith Haring,” The Doctor said as he pulled her to the piece in question, “1980’s artist, and his masterpiece ‘Pop Art 8’.”

Eileen looked at the painting that was created forty some years after she was born. Here she was, twenty years younger than she should have been, admiring it. “Simple,” she nodded, moving their way down to more of his other pieces, all of the fun and colorful figures. 

“It is,” he agreed, moving with her. “Still nice, though, don’t you think?” 

Eileen hummed, again, in response, now arriving at another piece she’d never seen. It stood about five feet wide and three feet high, a simple painting of what looked like a blue wheat field under a yellow sky. She didn’t recognize the kind of paint, but she noticed that, if you stood still enough, the blue wheat swayed in the wind the slightest bit. 

“Ah, the age of the programmed frames,” The Doctor said, stopping with her, “Sometime in 3000, you folks get the idea to modify art frames to redirect the light reflecting off the paint strokes so it appears to move. Another thousand years, and you basically have framed gifs—er, short moving pictures, like a film with no sound and less than a minute long, but now you can paint them.” 

“Oh, of course,” Eileen pretended to know what he was saying, and he laughed at her obvious attempt. 

The two continued on, arms linked, as The Doctor gave her commentary on each piece they came to. Eventually, they moved upstairs, where marble statues (some moving in repeated motions, some frozen in time) graced every few feet around the room. 

She didn’t ask any questions when he made her stop at the top of the stairs while he scanned every statue in the area. 

“You would be surprised what’s a threat,” he had said with a shrug when he returned and took her arm in his once again. 

It was in front of a silent, stone, roaring lion that he decided to resume their earlier conversation. 

“So,” The Doctor began, his voice feigning nonchalance, “We met again, and found your talent, then I started coming in annually for your house calls.”

She laughed lightly, and they moved to an unmoving marble bust of someone not yet known in her time. “You did. What’s confusing you now?” 

He shot her a slightly offended look at the correct assumption. “Why you’re a telepath. You certainly shouldn’t be, if you’re completely human, unless something odd happened to you before we met the first time. Anything to add?” 

Her face creased in thought, and any outside spectators would assume she had a lot of opinions on The Bust of Earth President 445, Geoffrey L. Martin. “Well, again, let me remind you, I was seven. All, I don’t know, two days of memories I have before that day seem pretty normal to me.” 

“Which leaves—,” he started, before cutting himself off. They had progressed to a wall statue, one moving to look like four large lizards scurrying up an invisible path on repeat. 

Eileen finished what he couldn’t say with a defeated sigh. “My parents.” 

It’s not, really, that she didn’t like talking about her parents. It’s that everyone else found it to be such a big topic. And one comfort she had always found in The Doctor, is he didn’t ever seem to acknowledge she was the poor little orphan girl everyone made her feel like she was. 

“Right,” he said, looking down to gauge her reaction briefly. “Can you tell me a bit about your family, Eileen? Everyone you can, really, not just your parents.” His voice held itself back with hesitation, probably as he also came to realize they had never really talked about this before. Not in the past tense, anyways, only the present. 

She pursed her lips, not in reluctance, but more like a stumped fish. “Well,” she started in a deep breath with her eyebrows raised, “My parents were named Robert and Gillian Moore, and they died a week before I met you. In a car crash, on their way back from a date, I think, I don’t know, I didn’t want to remember. Maybe an errand, but—,” she stopped, not wanting to lose herself in public (much less a public that was so new to her), “—they were together a year before they were married. Liza, my dad’s sister, told me once I might have been the reason for that, because I came along not too soon after. Then, a few years later, Mary did. Mom didn’t work, and dad did some kind of construction thing. Something with metal, I don’t remember. I don’t remember much, but I remember they loved each other. That’s it though. Nothing weird. My mom didn’t have any family, Aunt Liza said, and her and dad’s parents died a while before. It was just us. Now it’s—it’s just Mary.” 

She stared in front of her, but saw nothing. Noises went by her, but she heard none of it. She hadn’t meant to leave Mary alone. She felt The Doctor’s other hand cover her (sweater covered) arm, and Eileen blinked the start of tears away and came back to reality. “Well, Mary and her future family, anyways,” she shook her head, smiling regretfully. 

The Doctor leaned down, forcing her to meet his eyes. He—with his kind and ever knowing face—didn’t say anything. He just met her eyes and nodded once, eyes full of a fierce and determined expression to convert his understanding and confirm her final statement. No, Mary wasn’t left alone. Eileen had been. Now she wasn’t, and everything was okay. Mary would be okay. 

Eileen gave him one stiff nod back and broke her gaze to take in the statue of a small tree under a single cloud that was raining tiny, blue bits of glass onto the stone tree. 

He took his hand off her arm, and the loss of warmth chilled her even through the thick sweater. “Your mother,” The Doctor began carefully, “what else do you remember about her? Where’s she from?” 

“She—,” Eileen started before breaking off. Her face slipped back into confusion, a small strand of her honey hair sliding over her right eye. She tucked it back, and took longer to answer the question than she thought she would have needed. What’s more, her answer left much to be desired.

“I have no idea,” she admitted finally, turning her head up towards him, her eyes filled with inquiries of her own. “I don’t know anything besides her name, her not having family, and her being kind. I—should I?” 

Once again, his face shifted into a look of determined searching. The Doctor’s eyes, brown with flecks of a light green, moved over the entirety of her face. After a moment, he simply answered, “I don’t know. But it’s odd, isn’t it? How you didn’t realize that before?” 

She looked away now, nerves building up again in her gut. “Yes,” was all she could say in a dry voice. 

The Doctor pulled her arm gently back in the direction of the stairwell behind them. “Come on,” he urged, guiding them to the exit, “We should go to the TARDIS, this wasn’t the right place. I’m sorry.” 

She shook her head once, curtly, dismissing his self accusations, but said nothing as they walked briskly back to the ship. She was thankful they were still linked in arms, because once they had gotten to the ship’s outer doors, maybe five minutes later, she realized she’d not been aware of any of it. Her head was swimming, desperately trying to pull any memory of her mother to the surface. She couldn’t even visualize her sitting with Mary by the pond. She couldn’t even remember her face. 

The Doctor slipped his arm away and used the other to push and hold the door open for her. Eileen, still deep in her own thoughts, walked absentmindedly inside. Her round and lightly freckled face was contorted into the tight scrunching of unwanted reflection. She could remember her father, his face, his hands, his laugh, the tickle of his beard on her cheek when he would pull her into a hug. She only remembered that she once had a mother named Gillian with no family, and all of this because she had been reminded by other people who also couldn’t remember much about her mother. 

“Why can’t I remember her?” Eileen asked, turning around to face him when the TARDIS doors were shut. 

The Doctor leaned against the back of the entrance with his arms crossed. “Dunno,” he admitted, pulling his glasses from a pocket inside his jacket and slipping them on as he pushed himself back into a full standing position. “But, if I had to guess, I’d say it’s because she wasn’t human.” 

He was walking towards her now, slowly, with his head tilted down and his eyes peering over his frames. Eileen said nothing, but held eye contact while he stopped a foot away from her. The two stood, in silence, for another minute before The Doctor completely broke his own intensity and raised his eyebrows, stepping off towards the console. 

“Which,” he said, sliding his jacket off and throwing it over the railing, “Means you might not be human. Which might explain why you seem to age slowly, can hear people’s thoughts, and may have called a bunch of other non human things to your yard by mistake. That’s an idea, anyways.” As he spoke, he walked around the console, flipping various switches and pushing several buttons. “So why don’t we,” he continued, with his tongue pressed between his teeth as he made his way to the last switch, “Check at home, yeah? Hold on, now.” 

She frowned, stepping closer to the center to grab the railing with both hands and stare hard at him. “What do you mean ‘age slowly’? You’re not taking me back, are you?” The TARDIS began its familiar symphony of whirs and shaking as they took off. 

“Only for a bit,” The Doctor answered, keeping his attention on the screen to his right. “Just to take a closer look-see. You, old friend, haven’t so much as gotten the ghost of a wrinkle since I met you with Rose, haven’t you noticed that? Your eyes and your bones get older, your face takes much longer to catch up. Got any family albums, Eileen?” 

She sighed with visible relief and nodded, not caring about the rest of it as long as she wasn’t being sent back. “One and it’s morbidly short. Also, I think I just have a really good night time routine, thank you very much.”

He met her eyes then, grinning, despite the grim joke. “Well, we won’t be long then. And you can pick up your night time routine, or whatever you think it is.” 

————*————*————

The ship stilled itself a moment later, and Eileen felt the rise of dread in her throat. She didn’t want to be back. The Doctor, oblivious at least in presentation to her feelings, clicked his tongue. 

“Right then,” he said, stepping back and dusting his hands off, “Why don’t you pop back in and get those and I’ll set us up here.” 

“No,” she barked back immediately in protest. She met his eyes with a look of defiance. “Come with me so I know it’s not a trick.” 

He let his face slip into disbelief, voicing raising a few octaves in self defense. “Oi! I wouldn’t leave you here, we’re just starting to get somewhere on this, aren’t we?” When Eileen didn’t say anything, only crossed her arms, and he rolled his eyes while starting off behind her. 

She stopped by the doors, raising an eyebrow and not budging until he stepped out first (with another eye roll). “You really have to start trusting me,” he chided, shaking his head. 

“Not a day in my life,” she laughed, still not taking the lead as they walked up the hill. When she had to step ahead, in order to unlock the back door she was surprised she locked in the first place, she kept her eyes on him in faux skepticism. A part of her was hoping he had gotten the time wrong, and that the door was locked because Liza was being paranoid in the kitchen once again. He didn’t, and she wasn’t. Eileen sighed and took a glance around. She noticed the fruit she left on the dining table was now going rotten. 

“Don’t bring me back here again, please,” she said, still staring at the fruit and making her way further inside. 

He nodded in her peripheral vision. “Promise. Not unless you ask me.” She sighed, nodding in return, and went off to collect the album that sat on the living room mantle. 

The Doctor had slid onto a dining room chair, and tapped his on the space across from him. “Unless you want to take it in the TARDIS.” She shook her head, taking her seat and opening the album to the first page. 

Looking up at Eileen, frozen in their memories, were her parents. Side by side, in a sepia photo from a year before her birth, in 1944. That was the only one taken before they were married. Her mother’s forever still face met her own, which was creased together in confusion. The woman who stared up at the two was blonde, with soft features. She looked like the mothers in advertisements, minus the heavy apron and skirts. Her hair, pinned back and perfect; her eyes, kind and almond shaped; her nose, sloped and dainty; her lips, full and heart shaped. Eileen realized, at 24, she had the bottom half of her mother’s face. 

The woman looked real enough—I mean she was certainly there in the photographs. But there was something...off about her presence. Especially in the older photos. 

Eileen, with further confusion, realized her mother’s face looked exactly the same in every single picture. The same angle, same expression (a Mona Lisa smile on a midcentury American face), the same hair—everything. The exact same. Except—

“Her face,” The Doctor mumbled, turning the album in his direction, “It...fades. In the older pictures. Er—no, what—do you see that? What is that?” 

Eileen felt her flesh rise in a chill as she registered what he meant; she looked less...distinctive in the older pictures. Her face lost the sharpness of its features—not in the way youth did, but like she was a hazy memory. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

“She fades. Her face fades, she—it’s like the picture’s forgetting what she looks like.” 

He chewed his lip a moment, bringing his hand to rub absentmindedly at the space just below his faintly pointed chin. “I have an idea or six. Take a couple of those, will you? Get a few years worth, if that’s alright.” She nodded, and he continued, dropping his voice an octave. “And get the rest of your stuff, if you need. Since you don’t want to come back. Anything you might have forgotten, anything your sister might want, because. Erm. Well. Think we might have to pay her a visit, don’t we?” 

Eileen looked up at him quickly and sharply. “What?” 

“It only makes sense,” he explained slowly, keeping eye contact with her to convey his seriousness. “I mean, she’s your sister. Wouldn’t she be telepathic too? Or something, in the very least. Do you know where she lives?” 

Eileen frowned, disliking his undeniable logic. Since considering her ability came from a parent, it had never crossed her mind to think of Mary, but why shouldn’t she? They were sisters, and if Eileen had this, surely Mary must have something, like he said. 

“Yes,” she sighed finally, placing her hands face down on the table. “I know where she lives.” 

The Doctor only nodded in reply for now. He gave her time to slide out a few photos and stand, letting out another breath of defeat. 

“C’mon, get your things,” he urged, trying to keep the understanding evident in his voice. “I, uh. Have a bit more bad news.” 

She shot him another look in response as she walked into the living room, crouching to grab her stash box from under the end table. 

“I’m going to need to run a few tests, if that’s alright. To see if the TARDIS can trace your DNA to what I think it may be.” 

“Which is?” She asked, not looking at him as she pulled out the box and checked its contents (at least a quarter, several wrapping papers, a small pipe, and a lighter, thank you past Eileen). 

“Chrysillia. Tanguinea. A few less likely things. What is that?” His tone changed as he asked the last question, with one eyebrow raising to match the mood shift. 

She smirked, only glancing at him and shoving the box into a small bag she’d left on the loveseat the day she had left. “What’s a Chrysillia?” 

The Doctor frowned, eyeing her skeptically. “You first,” he muttered, crossing his arms. 

“No. I let you run the test, you tell me your ideas, I tell you what’s in the box, you have to tell me what a Chrysillia is. Quid pro quo.” 

“Clarice,” The Doctor grinned to Eileen’s confusion. “Fine. It’s an alien species that is more mental than physical, really. They’re named for their ability to project a mental image into other people’s mind—something about a bug chrysalis, maybe. And you’re mother, I think, projected a face onto all these photos. And as the memory of that face, and what’s left of her potentially quite strong mental energy, fades away—well. You saw.” 

Eileen did. She nodded, pursing her lips slightly. He continued, losing himself in the theory now. “And if I’m right—and sometimes I am—that would explain why you’re not aging the way I think you ought to be. You’re projecting what you know yourself to look like. It’s subtle, but it’s there.” 

This is where he lost her. 

“I have a face,” she defended, pressing her fingers into it just to be sure. 

“And you’re half human, so you’re still aging too. You just might be influencing what you look like,” he nodded, as if it made perfect sense. “Now. You’re turn.” 

She smirked, chewing her lip. “You already know, why ask?” 

“No,” he said sternly, pointing a finger at her, “Not on my TARDIS.” 

“Why not?” She huffed, disappointment creasing her possibly only vaguely real expression. “What, are we gonna get pulled over by the space police? Is somebody gonna give you a fine for time traveling under the infleunce? All the drugs in time and space and you’re worried about a little weed?” 

He frowned, looking a little hurt in his pride at the actual reason. “It stinks.” 

“I’ll smoke it in the bathroom, you have—what? 100?” Eileen laughed, giving him a look of hyperbolized pleading afterwards. “Please? I’ll smoke in the farthest one away, you won’t even notice.” 

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You’d never find it.” 

“Then you’d never smell it! Plus, if you’re running tests on me, I’m definitely getting high afterwards. I think I’m entitled.” She met his gaze defiantly, knowing she’d made a solid point. His sigh and the visible sloping of his body proved her right. 

“Fine,” he groaned, standing up and pushing his chair in. “Have you got everything?” 

She thought about a moment, and gratefully, remembered one other thing at the very last second. 

“No,” she said, meeting his gaze with excitement, “I do not. Hold on.” 

He waited, impatiently, and an eternity later she emerged holding a neatly folded trench coat and a pleased expression. The one he’d left, and admittedly forgotten about, all those years ago. 

“You know,” The Doctor smiled, as Eileen slipped the coat over her arm and the two made their way out the door for the last time, “I have another one just like it. Better, even. And guess who gave it to me? You’ll never guess, don’t even bother. Okay, no, guess.” 

She glanced up at him with suspicious green eyes as she locked the door. “Who?” 

He gave another tongue-in-teeth smile, as he met her look with one of unbothered smugness. “Janis Joplin.”

Her step faltered, and Eileen threw her hands up in a wave meant to convey her disbelief. “No, she didn’t.”

“Oh, yes, she did,” he laughed as they crossed the final distance to the TARDIS’ blue entrance. “Tried to give me a lot more than that, too.” 

“And you’re telling me you’ve never smoked,” Eileen snorted, walking through the door he (very gentlemanly) held open for her. 

“I never said that,” The Doctor grinned, enjoying the incredulous look she shot back at him when she whirled around on her heel. 

“Oh, you have to,” she said, beginning to laugh with a vaguely malicious undertone beneath it. She laid her bag down against the railing, the trench coat over the bar, and the photos from her pocket gently on the console.

“Nope.” He popped the ‘p’ in his response, not bothering to hide his amusement (once again) while he strode over to his place in the center of the ship. 

Eileen huffed, raking her mind for another argumentative point to make. She knew, due to the night with Martha, that would be a futile effort. For now. She did have a quarter, and literally all the time in the world, after all. She’d get to him later. 

“Fine,” She conceded, slightly shaking her head side to side. “So, what tests are we doing? Are you gonna hook me up to an IV and make me run on a treadmill? Bunch of little sticky things on my head? Electroshock?”

The Doctor barked out a startled laugh at ‘electroshock’. “The 60’s were mad,” he said, drawing out the last word, “But no, nothing that invasive, I think. I’ll need a few DNA samples to run through the TARDIS. A strand of hair, saliva sample, skin sample, small things.” 

He stopped and met her eyes with a new wave of seriousness. “And maybe,” he started, voice heavy with caution, “Something else.” 

Eileen didn’t know what to make of his sudden mood shift, and especially didn’t know what to make of what he was actually saying. Did he mean another test or another kind of sample, and either way, what could have made him react like that? She felt her face involuntarily fold with skepticism once more, but didn’t say anything. She was hoping what she was suspecting was not what he was asking, but what else could he not ask her? 

“If you’ll let me, I’d like to take a trip into your memories to see what may be buried of your mother and sister,” he said, putting weight on each of his words and maintaining an intentful gaze. 

She blinked before letting out her own laugh, one laced with relief. “Oh, that’s it? Sure I don’t care, I thought—well, never mind, what I thought. Er—you’re about to see it, though, aren’t you? Okay well. Just know,” she continued, face now growing hot with embarrassment, “I suspected the worst. I guess. Shut up.” 

It was The Doctor’s turn to blink now, before his face slipped into realization. “Ah,” he nodded, eyebrows rising towards his hairline, “Right—no, not that, or—anything—yeah. I can see, ah, how it sounded like—anyways, let’s just get on with it, shall we?” He shook his head, and suspectedly his thoughts away with it, turning his attention back to the console. 

Eileen leaned against the rail, watching him fiddle with a few buttons and switches for a minute. Eventually, down a little column she hadn’t previously noticed in the mess of chords and chutes, came a canister. The Doctor pulled it out of its place in the hollow tube and tossed it into the air before catching it smoothly. She smiled at his dedication to theatrics, no matter that situation. 

“For you,” he said, presenting the empty cylinder shaped container as if it were a bouquet of flowers. 

Eileen hummed with delight and accepted her gift. She went ahead and pulled out a strand of hair, placing it inside, but raised an eyebrow for the rest. “Just uh, spit in it,” he shrugged, “Then I can hold it and if you just scratch your palm over it, that should be enough.” 

Eileen raised the other eyebrow and shrugged herself, politely turning her head away from him as she spat into the container. Mostly, because she was worried she would accidentally make eye contact, and in turn make it weird. A moment later, he did as promised and held it while she let gravity do the work of pulling a skin sample. He spun the top of the tube, which closed the opening, and placed it back into the original place it had emerged from. 

“Now we wait,” he said simply, nodding once in acknowledgment of the task's completion. “Just a few minutes. In the meantime...,” The Doctor didn’t finish his sentence, just looked at her with eyes full of worry. 

“It’s fine,” Eileen assured him, shaking her head and feeling the ends of her hair flick against her cheeks lightly. “I’ll be okay.” 

“It’s just…,” he started, taking one step closer to her and shrugging off the jacket of his suit. He cut himself off with a sigh as he threw it over the railing. 

“Donna,” she finished for him. He looked up at her again with a very faint trace of gratitude at not having to say it. It was mostly hidden behind the guilt he felt knowing his inner dilemmas were so obvious to her. That his crimes were written so clearly on his face. 

“It’s not the same,” she continued, “You know this is different. But I understand why it’s hard for you. So soon. I get it, but you need to, right? It’s okay.” 

The Doctor looked away from her again, chewing on his bottom lip in thought. “Yeah,” he sighed after a while, running his hand through his hair. “I know.” 

“So. Tell me what to do,” she said, intent on making sure he didn’t talk himself out of it again. Truthfully, she was curious to know what it would be like; being on the receiving end of what she’d always been able to do. 

“Just, ah,” he began, shrugging his shoulders a bit as he rolled his sleeves up his forearms, “Sit there, I suppose and—,” 

“Wait,” she interrupted, considering something else, “How much will you be able to see?” 

He let out one brief breath of a laugh before answering, “I’m only going to be looking at memories of your mother, and if there’s anything odd in those, more of your sister and potentially my visits.” 

“Your visits,” she repeated, her nerves growing more unsettled with every step he took near her. “How much of your visits?” 

The Doctor, for a moment, allowed the confusion to cross his face. “I mean, I was there. I just need to make sure there wouldn’t be any—blimey, I dunno. Coincidences? Been a lot of those, you know.” 

“Right, right, right,” she said, nodding, “But if you’re in my brain, wouldn’t you be seeing things as I saw them? The way I remember them? Hear what I was thinking during it?” 

This time the confusion was allowed full access over his features. “Maybe. It really depends on the person, but if that’s how you associate your memories, then yes, probably. Listen,” he said, leaning down to make her meet his eyes, “Whatever it is you don’t want me to see, just take it and put it away somewhere else. Tuck it behind a door or in a box, whatever. I probably won’t see it. Besides, I doubt I’ll need to get close to the present.” 

“Probably,” she repeated again, “Right. Okay. Put it in a box. It’ll be fine.” 

He was at an arm’s length away from her now. She looked up at him, standing about half a foot taller, give or take a few inches. His face, sculpted with the weight of seriousness he felt about his new task at hand, was touched with concern and understanding in the edges. It made her feel better, in truth. A little. 

“You sure?” He asked again, keeping his distance until Eileen nodded. When she did, he took one small step towards her and simply placed his first two fingers on either side of her temples.

Eileen felt, at first, nothing. 

Then, a second later, when he began his mental journey into the furthest parts of her memory, she felt him pulling her with him. Involuntarily, but not unwillingly, racing back into years she hadn’t thought about since she stepped out of her childhood. A physical sensation of wind and time rushing by her. She saw flashes of her school days, progressing further and further back until they reached the point before she’d been in school at all. 

She saw, with unnatural clarity, the very first days of being cognitively developed enough to even form memories. 

She was almost five. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. They were in her parent’s room, what it looked like before Liza moved in and felt like enough time passed for her to stop sleeping on the couch. Her, her mother, and her father. Her father, with his deep brown scruffy hair and beard, his features reminded her of a cartoon lumberjack. Her mother...looked like her pictures. Exactly. But she moved this time. Just barely, with her features only contorting the slightest bit despite the sound of laughter that escaped her unmoving mouth. Her father didn’t notice. She remembered noticing. She remembered the sound of her laughter. Something about this moment had confused Eileen as a child, and now, two decades later, she realized why.

The memory, a short clip of Eileen and her parents simply being a family being happy together, felt wrong. 

While she and her father had laughed with their full bodies, her mother barely moved at all. That’s why she noticed, the first night she spoke with The Doctor, when he laughed with his entire body, perhaps. She felt a feeling of sentimentality that wasn’t her own fall over her, and suddenly remembered that she wasn’t the only person watching. 

She realized why this moment was special. It was right before Mary was born. That’s why they were all laughing; because they told her she was going to be a big sister very soon. 

Except—her mother wasn’t pregnant. 

Suddenly, everything shifted and she was being pulled again. 

She was in her kitchen. She was five now, had just turned five. Her father was at work and she was getting hungry. Her mother usually had something for her already when she was hungry. She was going to go look. Eileen slid off her bed in a way she hadn’t done in a long time; she had to jump when her feet didn’t immediately touch the floor. She felt the intrusive wave of someone else’s amusement and joined in its echo of laughter. Eileen, with no trace of concern, strode happily down the hall. She stopped before she reached the opening, just when she was able to see the kitchen. 

She had stopped, maybe to see what lunch was meant to be, and peered in the kitchen. What she saw was her mother, chopping carrot sticks and preparing a PB&J sandwich. Well, they were being prepared by someone, anyways. 

Her mother stood by the counter, hands completely still and face staring blankly through the kitchen window. When Eileen had sucked in a breath and blinked, things changed. She opened her eyes to see her mother’s hands clutching the knife, whistling happily to herself as she chopped away. ‘Lunch is ready, Leenie.’ She felt another wave of humor that wasn’t her own at the nickname. She knew it didn’t belong to her, because what she felt was a life shifting sense of confusion. 

None of this was right. None of this was normal. The humor suddenly melted into a rush of soothing comfort. He was here. And it was over, had been for years, remember? They were figuring it out together. She let his assurance take the forefront of her mind. 

Everything changed again. 

It was the night they brought Mary home, just a couple of weeks after their last scene. She was supposed to be asleep. Her parents were in the living room, speaking in hushed and frantic tones. 

Something felt wrong again. 

If this was the night she saw Mary the first time, why was her mother still at home? Eileen saw headlines flash through the cracks in the blinds and she looked outside. It was raining. She couldn’t see inside the car, only the flashes of precipitation through the invasive gleam. 

The door opened. 

Her gaze flickered to the outside of the entryway, where a figure stood holding a bundle in their arms. She heard her mother’s voice raise in excitement and greeting. The three (her parents and the nameless figure) sat speaking quietly for another moment. Just a second later, everything was back as it had been before; dark and still. 

She heard a tap on her bedroom door. Her mother, blonde and greeting card perfect, as always, came in holding a swaddled baby in her arms. ‘Look, Leenie,’ she said, ‘come meet your new sister, Mary.’ 

It all rushed past her again. 

A brief, simple flash of her, Mary, and her mother by the pond. With the fairies—Solarious. They danced, just as she remembered them to. They danced and ate the light from the waves, bobbing between the flecks of sunshine on the ripples. She was dancing too, spinning around in circles with no clue that there was anything abnormal about it all. 

Her mother, holding Mary in her lap, didn’t either. Her face, always the same, watched softly over the water. Like she was simply observing ducks or dragonflies. Like there was nothing out of the ordinary in the picture. Honestly, she didn’t even really look like she was seeing at all. Eileen stopped spinning for a moment to consider that maybe other kids didn’t have fairies at home.

Again, everything moved in a blur. 

She was six. It was nighttime, later than she had ever been up before. She had woken up to the sound of her parent’s muffled screams across the house. Mary’s crib was in her room, and not too long before, she had taken the two year old out to hold her. 

She had done that because her parents were fighting about Mary. 

Her father said she was Auntie Liza’s daughter and that if she wanted her back, she was entitled to be her mother again. Eileen didn’t know what that meant. She knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she never remembered this either. Even though she was here, watching it happen, she could say for a certainty she had never thought about this night since. In the same part of her mind that knew how deep this had been buried, she felt a swell of panic. 

Once more, it was met with The Doctor. Just him; his mind, his energy, his thoughts. It reassured her enough to allow the memory to play out without resistance. 

Her mother was sobbing, yelling things about not being able to take this back, how it wasn’t fair for her to have them raise Mary just for her to take her, and how she was her mother now. She clutched her sister, and looked down at the small growth of black hair peeking through the blanket. Not blonde, like her mother’s.

Then they moved again.

This was the night her parents had died. It was six months later, and she had since turned seven. Liza was visiting, just before she moved in, and the three of them were sitting in a circle in the living room. 

When Liza came in, she cried and held Mary closer and tighter than she had Eileen. That was okay. She understood it now. Why Mary drifted so far after Liza died. Maybe she had known. 

‘Everything will be okay,’ Liza was smiling softly through her dried tears, ‘I promise I won’t let anything else bad happen, okay?’ Eileen had nodded, wanting so badly to believe her. 

She had heard something then. A deep, regretful sigh. The other two didn’t seem to notice, but she had heard it. 

Her gaze flickered to the couch, just behind where Liza was sitting. She knew it was impossible, but she could have sworn she saw her mother there. Faintly, not like a ghost, but the way she would have imagined a memory to be before The Doctor showed her the truth. Like her mother was there and real, but only to her; an imaginary friend, almost. She was looking at Eileen, face full of sadness and eyes shining with tears. ‘Me too,’ the memory said in her mother’s voice. ‘I’m not gone yet, Leenie.’ Eileen had only blinked in disbelief, before turning back to the other two. 

They moved, one final time, to the night she first saw The Doctor. 

To the night she saw the fairies, only a week later. She had been on the pier and just noticed them. She remembered feeling like she did it, like she had brought them there. Like this was how she added to the pond’s legacy, just like she told him. She remembered the panic she felt when she heard and saw the TARDIS. 

Eileen felt another rush of humor at the sight of The Doctor’s first face’s (to her, anyways) ears in her mind, and his own feelings of protest (then reluctant agreement). 

It ended with one feeling; she remembered that it had felt like a gift from her parents. Like they had let her see everything clearly so she wouldn’t be left completely upset. So she would feel grateful instead. 

Then he was done. 

She felt a small rush of cool air hit her as The Doctor pulled his hands from her temples. Eileen’s eyes remained shut as her consciousness brought itself back into the present. She moved each of her fingers and her toes, reminding herself of what and where the present even was. 

She was in the TARDIS, in her backyard, standing less than a foot away from The Doctor. She was okay. Everything she had just lived through had been over for years. Even if it didn’t feel like it had been five minutes, it’s been over for seventeen years. 

“Eileen,” she heard his voice call to her. She took one last deep breath before opening her eyes to face him. He hadn’t moved back; still just a forearm’s width away. He was looking at her with concern weaved into his gaze once more. “Are you alright, Eileen?” 

Her eyes shot down briefly, scanning somewhere between his mouth and collar quickly in thought. “Yes,” she answered, biting her lip. “Nothing new, I guess.” 

The Doctor tilted his head to the side, his loose spikes of brown hair catching some of the orange TARDIS hues. “Felt pretty new to you,” he said, urging her to take the information seriously. “Is Mary Liza’s daughter, Eileen?” 

She sighed, finally meeting his eyes again. Her own were fixed in a look that just said ‘oh well.’ 

“I mean, I’d guess so, huh?” She shrugged. “Makes sense. You saw it.” 

He nodded, crossing his arms and stepping back to lean against the railing beside her. “So it does. Do you...do you still want to go see her? Even if she’s not got a weird brain thing herself, we can still go see her. If you wanted.” 

She leaned back with him, and the two leaned side by side in the wake of the avalanche of revelation that had come crashing down around them. “Yeah, I suppose I’d like that,” Eileen agreed. “So? The rest of it? What do you make of that?” 

“I’d say I was right,” The Doctor replied, glancing over at her, “Chrysillia. A species native to the planet Pragon, 4th section of the M-87 galaxy. She got a bit lost, that’s...a good bit away. But,” and with this, he pushed himself off from the rail and made the short journey to the console, “Those things happen sometimes, don’t they? Anyways, the Chrysillia have this fantastic little thing where they can make people see whatever they want—you remember, I mentioned that earlier. Well, it’s not something they need to do on their home planet, of course. They know they’re a mostly non physical entity, so why project? It’s what they do for the less mentally advanced beings. And you, being a more mentally advanced being, didn’t see it the way the rest did. You saw the face she projected, but you saw it as a projection. An image, not a person. It didn’t move for you the way it did for other people. And when your parents died, your mother’s physical body perished—but mentally?” 

He was looking at her now with those wild eyes once again, and she couldn’t help but smile softly at his enthusiasm. He continued on, as if all of this was just Sunday news to him and not a rewrite of her entire life’s story. 

“Mentally she stuck around—see, that’s what’s really interesting about the Chrysillia; when their body passes, their energy still takes a while to fade after it. On their home planet, they can stick around for decades, but so far from it? I dunno, but I’d say she may have been around the first night we saw each other, wouldn’t you? I mean you felt her, even if you couldn’t really see her anymore like on the couch before, right? You felt like she gave it to you. And if you started noticing your abilities after your parents died, there’s a good chance it’s because you were able to start picking up on her mental residual energy, and therefore, other people’s too.” 

Eileen nodded, still not speaking. 

She didn’t resent how quickly he could move past the gravity of this discovery, but she couldn’t match his level of excitement right now. He was flipping more switches, keeping his attention on the console and its various screens before him. She stayed in her spot, focusing more on the pace of her breathing than what he was saying. After a moment, The Doctor seemed to notice her mood change, flicking his gaze to see why she hadn’t responsed out loud to his many inquiries and speculations. 

“Your results are back,” he said, causing her to meet his eyes. His were soft, understanding instead of thrilled at the discovery like they had been. She appreciated being seen in her struggle, and gave him another light curve of the lips before walking to the space next to him. She maintained a respectable distance, too physically drained from their mutual trip into the recesses of her mind to deal with the emotional intensity that came with standing too close to him. 

“And?” She said, raising her shoulders to use her extended arms as a way to prop herself up on the console table. 

“And it’s confirmed,” The Doctor said simply, nodding towards the screen that fell between them, “54% Chrysillia DNA. Congratulations, Eileen Frances Moore. You’re one of the only Chrysillia-Human hybrids to exist, as far as I know.” He glanced at her, trying to keep his tone light, but the gleam was back in his eyes. He was fascinated, and very unable to hide it. “How’s that for special?” The last line was spoken with that trademark tongue between the teeth grin that she had come to admire. 

“If you say so,” Eileen sighed with a full smile now, still looking at the screen yet not really seeing it. “But I’ve been Eileen Frances Moore much longer than I’ve been—Jesus, I’m not going to keep repeating that—A Chrissy, so. I don’t really want to care, you know? So I won’t. It’s fine if you do, but I don’t.” 

There, underneath everything else, was a very distinct air of exhaustion. She had been Eileen the orphan (twice, kind of), Eileen the telepath, Eileen the drop out, Eileen the slut, Eileen the odd one, Eileen the new one, Eileen this, and Eileen that. She came with him to escape being Eileen anything. She just, simply, wanted to be. 

Fortunately, he seemed to understand that too. “A Chrissy,” he grinned, turning his attention away from her and back to the screen that had now gone blank. “Of course. Do you know what I think?” 

She turned and leaned back against the console now, still gripping her hands on table space either side of her. “What do you think?” They met eyes again and she saw the reflection of that mischievous look once again.

“I think we should forget about all this mess for now. Put a pin in it, yeah?” One corner of his mouth was raised and he nodded towards the hallway opening behind him. “Why don’t you go have yourself a rest and when you wake up, we’ll start fresh and go anywhere you want to.” 

Something in the way he said it made her think he wouldn’t be forgetting it, and had some things of his own to attend to during her encouraged nap. Eileen wasn’t in the mood to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. 

She nodded once more, pushing herself up into a full standing position. Her sweater felt heavy on her limbs now, and she wouldn’t resist the opportunity to be alone for a bit. “I suppose I should just keep going till I find a bed?” 

“Basically,” he said, amused at the simplicity, “It helps if you think about it while you’re looking. The TARDIS can hear you, she’ll bring one too you before too long.” 

“Of course she will,” Eileen laughed as she made her way to the hallway. When she arrived at the opening she turned back to face him, placing one hand on the wall to lean against. “Don’t have too much fun without me,” she smirked, feeling her hair slip out past its hold behind her left ear. 

“Oh, never,” he lied, shaking his head with hyperbolized disbelief. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

“Shut up,” she laughed, turning back around to finish out her search. As she made her way down the hall, she heard him start tinkering away with his buttons and dials, no doubt continuing to test her DNA. As she walked she imagined a bed, and the comforting grip of sleep. Her fingers still ran down the length of the walls, unmoving as they slipped over the gap of doorways. Within less than a minute she spotted a bed through one of those openings. 

The room itself looked like a cabin, completely made of wood. There was a small fireplace going to the left side, and a set of wooden rocking chairs in front of it. The bed, lined with a thick and heavy white quilt, looked unbearably inviting. Eileen wondered, briefly, where the smoke went but then dismissed it when she considered the impossibility of it all. Why shouldn’t there be a fireplace? It wasn’t long before she found herself collapsed and tucked away under the blankets, warm and feeling suspiciously at home. As sleep quickly made its way into her mind, she also wondered if that’s why the TARDIS had given this room in particular to her. 

The last coherent thought she had was ‘What a clever thing she must be,’ before she lost her uncommitted fight with sleep.


End file.
